A New Journey
by patriots12
Summary: A new journey is set out for Yuna and the Gullwings six months after her reunion with her lover, now a new evil she has never faced before has surfaced,she'll need every ally for this new evil including a new warrior. Tidus/Yuna, Rikku/OC, Paine/Baralai
1. Prologue

A/N: I don't own final fantasy; if I did there would be a final fantasy x-3 and x-4. Enough said. But I do own the OC.

**A New Journey**

Prologue

A few months after the reappearance of Tidus, now nineteen years old but still has to adjust to the new Spira since two years ago when Sin was defeated it was revealed that Tidus was a dream of the fayth and eventually disappeared. When a certain sphere came along it was the beginning of Yuna's journey as she not only had to save Spira again, but saved it from a young man named Shuyin who was set on destroying Spira with Vegnagun but not only Yuna and the gullwings stop him, but his lover Lenne had set him straight about what happened one thousand years ago.

Now that the Eternal Calm is saved, now Tidus seems to be sleeping on the beach when he really wasn't; he was enjoying the breeze on the beach, he missed this breeze so much until a few moments later a loving voice gets his attention.

"Tidus!" a girl yells at him, as he opens his ocean blue byes he sees his love Yuna running towards him and embraces him, Yuna really had missed him in the two year span; once the two reunited they tried to spend any free time together if they can at all but the same things that had united them also was separating them a bit.

"Hey Yuna, how was the search?" he asked, to everyone in Besaid they were like two sides of the same coin; any time spent together they were nearly inseparable.

"To be honest, it was ok." Yuna said, in her mind that search was boring even to her but she wouldn't tell Tidus that since she knew eventually Rikku would spill the beans.

"Hmm, you know Rikku would just come down here from the village and tell me right?" Tidus says in a cocky manner, since he had returned it was almost as if Yuna's sphere hunting suddenly became his business, not that he minded listening to but for some reason he just couldn't see himself hunting spheres. Yuna first asked him if he would join but back then his mind couldn't grasp the subject at first, within a couple days he understood but was concerned about if he was sphere hunting how much would it impact his blitzball practices with Wakka not that he minded by any stretch of the imagination but he just couldn't see himself as a sphere hunter at the moment.

"Well yeah, you know her already, doesn't know when to keep her mouth shut." Yuna comments, Tidus laughs at this, not because it was funny; because it was true about her.

"Rikku's easy to read at times." Tidus says sounding similar to what Auron told him a couple years ago about Yuna but he never told her that at all.

"Trying to sound like Auron?" Yuna teased the blitzer.

"Hey! He was my mentor you know." Tidus lets out an complaint as Yuna just smiles, sure they missed spending time together but now that they're together Yuna can have that most women had already received; she has love in her life, now her heart that was once broken was now healed because of him, now she can say she was happy.

"You never said that he mentored you." Yuna said sounding surprised.

"Well someone had to since my father wasn't exactly the role model type." Tidus says, surprising to Yuna there was no bitterness in his voice about his father this time, this left Yuna to wonder if while Tidus was away did they manage to settle their differences?

"Anyway, where is Rikku? Isn't she with you?" Tidus asked with an raised eyebrow at Yuna since she's laying next to him after the embrace and he is listening while sneaking in a couple looks at her.

"Nope, she's in the village." was Yuna's answer.

"I wonder why she was so angry yesterday." Tidus says as Yuna thinks back to yesterday knowing the answer to that question.

_Flashback 24 hours ago..._

_After the blitzball practice everyone left the beach, Tidus gave Yuna a pat on the shoulder as he left towards the village along with everyone else. Now the only two that were at the beach were Yuna and Rikku, Yuna had noticed that Rikku had been acting so mad lately, her anger was at one to take lightly; everyone were on notice if she yells or screams due to her anger building up._

"_Rikku? What's gotten into you?" Yuna asked, but the answer she was going to get she didn't know it was coming, in fact Rikku hugged Yuna because she was crying._

"_There, there." Yuna says in an almost motherly like way, wiping Rikku's tears as she calms down a bit . "What's wrong, Rikku?"_

"_Yuna, I dumped Gippal." she confessed, now it was Yuna's turn to be baffled._

"_Why? Did he hurt you?" If the answer was yes, Yuna would have killed Gippal the moment she said I but she couldn't do that because he's the leader of the Machine Faction but also an important person and if he was killed by Yuna her reputation would be ruined._

"_No, it just was that he was cheating on me and when I caught him in the act I dumped him." Rikku explained, she calmed down a bit after her emotional breakdown. "God, he was such a womanizer." _

"_Don't worry, you'll find someone else." Yuna assured her as Rikku calmed down a bit after a moment._

"_You're sure?"_

"_Believe me when I say so." and with that, the two went into Besaid Village to join up with the others._

_End flashback..._

"Yuna?"

"Hmm?" was the girl's response, while the two were sitting there Yuna had spaced out during the flashback.

"So, what is Rikku's problem?" Tidus asked, Yuna looked at him with an assuring look and said "She's just dealing with her own problems." she was in fact covering up for Rikku.

"Well, she'll deal with it." Tidus agreed with Yuna's statement.

"And we'll support her, come on let's go to the village." Yuna says as she grabs Tidus's hand yanking him off the beach and goes to the village.

"Still want something fun to happen?" Tidus asked, Yuna smiles and nods at him as he says "Sometimes you'll get it in the most unexpected way." as they run together hand in hand towards the village.

**Patriots12**

A/N: I just wanted to set the story up before continuing, I was thinking of doing a character index while I do the story but I decided not to. If you guys want me to do that send a message to me. Any advice would be kindly accepted.


	2. The Journey Begins

Chapter 1: The Journey begins

Yuna woke from her slumber and in the process almost woke Tidus. But then again he could have slept through anything. She looked over at her slumbering boyfriend as she got ready for the day, everyone was supposed to leave for the afternoon on the ship but she is not sure if Tidus will be awake to see that.

After getting ready, she decides to wake up Tidus by shaking him only to get a toss and a grunt from him.

Yuna not wanting to wait till Tidus got up actually she bends down right to his ear, Yuna whispers "Hey baby." This woke Tidus and sent him falling to the ground head first, groans from the pain.

"Yuna, what the hell was that for?" Tidus asked softly not wanting to wake the neighborhood around him and Lulu and Wakka, he definitely didn't want to wake up Lulu in the morning.

"Can't take a joke? It's time to wake up silly." Yuna says with a smile on her face, Tidus gets up and kisses Yuna on the lips as she kissed back passionately as they continued they heard a strange yet familiar voice.

"It's been a while, Tidus." the voice says, Tidus looked around along with Yuna where the voice was coming from, it didn't take long for them to find the person who made the voice; the fayth was standing in front of them, in a ghostlike appearance of a child wearing a hoodie with an mysterious ring symbol on the back while wearing short pants.

"What are you doing here? I thought you were gone for good." Tidus pointed out, he knew what had happened to him due to the fayth two years ago.

"Not entirely, it would seem that some of our energy is still here, I guess we're pretty much alive still." the fayth theorized sounding uncertain on how they're still around.

"Well, that's good." Yuna cuts in.

"Well I'm here to tell you something." The fayth explains, this has got the couple's attention completely.

"A new journey begins for all of you, I know it's been six months of the Eternal Calm being saved from you Lady Yuna; but this new evil that has been once sealed away is now on the verge of freedom."

"Hang on, what are you talking about?" Tidus asked with a confused look on his face, Yuna looked like she was trying to wrap her mind around this possible meaning, it would seem the fayth liked to talk in riddles to her.

"Find him, he is the key."

"Who is that?"

"You'll know when you find him, the hint is that his story might be similar to yours Tidus but different." And with that they fayth disappeared leaving a bewildered Tidus and a confused Yuna behind.

**24 hours la****ter...**

Since the Fayth's reappearance talking to Tidus and Yuna yesterday Yuna and the Gullwings have been searching for spheres since Tidus's return to Spira. Tidus decided to go with Yuna and the rest of the Gullwings for the experience, since they're on the Celsius everyone left Besaid a month later even through blitzball practice and sphere-hunting were an issue in the short-term.

Tidus and Yuna were side by side still trying to wrap their head around what the fayth told them.

"Who do you think this 'key' person this?" Yuna asked him, obviously he is trying to wrap around on who is this person.

"I'm not sure, but I know it's a young man judging by what the fayth said." Tidus says, Yuna starts understanding the Fayth's riddle talk "And if these shadows get free from their prison he can help."

"Okay, now we have decoded the Fayth's riddle and all; I wonder how he'll find us."

Suddenly they're interrupted by a perky voice "Tidus, you have some explaining to do." Rikku comes running out of thin air it seems, Paine follows not too far behind from her not expressing any emotion towards the bronze ace.

"What do I got to explain about?"

"Where did you go after two years ago?" Rikku asks the blitzball ace, obviously Tidus was in the spotlight now; he had to just deal with it.

"Since I left, I was actually at the farplane." Tidus answers "But when the fayth told me I was going back to Spira I was overjoyed." as Tidus stands up obviously sitting still was not in his arsenal yet.

"And now I'm happy to have you back." Yuna says as she hugs Tidus around the neck.

"Aw, Yuna." Tidus says due to him being in the spotlight now with a slightly flushed look.

Yuna lets go seeing Tidus looking embarrassed for a moment but that look disappeared rather quickly but he held her hand anyway while Paine starts to talk.

"Anyway, all I know is that Yuna was looking for you for two years other than that I don't know who you are." Paine asks in a calm way which was surprising to only Buddy and Brother, since Tidus doesn't know Paine all that well there's no emotion on the young man's face.

"Yeah, even I wanted to know your name." Yuna says as she punched Tidus in the arm in a playful manner, even the playfulness of Yuna had him smiling.

"Okay okay, for those who don't know my name; my name is Tidus." he explains to everyone "Yuna and Rikku already know this but Jecht is my father."

When this was said Paine, Buddy and Brother all stared in disbelief and shock of the news like he had dropped a bombshell on them.

"You're Jecht's son?" Paine, Buddy and Brother all say in shock of what the young ace has told them, only Rikku and Yuna were not in shock like Paine is right now. Yuna and Rikku each were laughing a few seconds until they were silenced by Tidus pinching the girls only to receive a glare from Rikku that was serious but wasn't extreme but Yuna gave him a assuring look.

"Yes, I am and proud to be it." Tidus declares as he boasts with a big grin on his face.

"I thought you hated your father." Yuna pointed out to the ace, obviously this has Tidus stop boasting his goofy grin.

"I know Yuna, but we came to an understanding." Tidus explained to everyone, his voice somehow still remains calm "It's true that I hated my father at the beginning, but all I wanted was his acknowledgment as a son to a father."

"So that's why you resented him." Rikku realizes as she remembered how he was two years when he said that he hated his father in front of everyone before they fought him.

"I see, and I thought that he was a good person all these years." Paine admitted as she gets a word in.

"He is, but can be a bastard at times." Tidus points out to her, even through Tidus hasn't known the black-clad warrior known to him as Paine, and it was good to get the introductions out of the way.

Suddenly an alarm is ringing throughout the ship; Tidus looks around in frenzy as everyone got into their main positions while Tidus is standing there looking around like he had lost a friend and desperately trying to find that person.

"What's going on?" Tidus asks as the alarm still rings throughout the main deck.

"We located a sphere." Buddy explains "It appears to be one on the top of Mt. Gagazet." Once informed Tidus settles down

"Well, let's get it before someone else!" Tidus declared to everyone, sure he was getting ecstatic all over a sphere since he never hunted for one before.

"Next stop, Mt. Gagazet!" Brother yells while turns off the auto-pilot and flies the Celsius to the top of the mountain.

By the time the Celsius gets up to the top of the mountain only Tidus is astonished at the sight of the mountain.

"Wow, it looks nice." Tidus says in amazement "Yuna, you were right." Tidus told Yuna in preference that since his return Yuna did tell him everything that she had went through to bring him back, this had a long lasting effect on Tidus now realizing that his girlfriend would go through all that for him.

"Yep, now let's find that sphere." Yuna declares as the group exit the ship onto the ruin side

After a few minutes the group climbs up to a broken part of the cliffs, however as they were done three voices were heard behind them.

"Fancy seeing you guys here." a female voice says behind them.

"Ugh, you again." Yuna says in a bitter manner.

'Talk about competition.' Tidus thought since the way Yuna seemed bitter at the new group that is behind them, for what he didn't know was that the groups were friends but not at that level as he shifts uncomfortably.

"You were right, boss, as always." a male voice says complementing the female.

"We were right behind you." The female says obviously she's the one controlling her two goons.

"Behind us? You and your posse were following us." Paine pointed out the obvious.

"Following them has paid off expectantly." The other male says

Rikku lets out a small giggle.

"You! I heard that! You guys must be amateurs at this, have no concept for sphere hunting." The female says

"We are not amateurs!" Yuna shot back

"Don't know about you, but this lady needs to learn some respect!" Tidus declared, he didn't like the way the mysterious female was talking.

"I have plenty of respect, but you'll learn some!" The female declared pointing at Tidus.

"By the way, what is your name?" Rikku asks

"It's Leblanc; this is Ormi to my left and Logos to my right." Leblanc introduces "What about him?" as she points her fan at Tidus.

Tidus takes a few steps forward and this action surprises Yuna and the Gullwings by doing this.

"Since you want to know my name, I'll tell you nicely, it's Tidus." he introduced himself.

"Since that's over, prepare yourself!" Leblanc declares as she whips up a fierce wind attack knocking Tidus back a bit.

"You want a fight? We'll give you one." Rikku declares as she pulls out her weapons.

Paine and Yuna do the same and Tidus pulls out the brotherhood sword, Yuna had gave him back the sword earlier and his celestial weapon since he returned and Yuna found a longsword for her to use.

The battle begins with Leblanc using her fan and hitting Rikku, Paine counterattacked by landing a critical hit on Logos. Tidus strikes Leblanc with a shot from his sword, Ormi struck Paine with his shield that did some damage; Paine casts Power Break to lower Ormi's damage and also landed a critical hit on him.

Logos shoots at Yuna and does little damage, the combination of Tidus's strike and Yuna's trigger happy takes Ormi down for the count.

"One down, two to go." Tidus says in a cocky way

"It's not over yet." Leblanc says as she casts thunder and hits Rikku.

Rikku attacks Leblanc and also stole one of Leblanc's items as Paine strikes Logos; Tidus strikes Logos putting him out of commission.

"Damn you... Gullwings." He says before is knocked out

Leblanc is shocked to see Tidus strike down Logos with such ease, but Leblanc launches a wind storm at Tidus.

The wind storm did some damage, but Tidus's face just cracks a small smile.

"What's so funny?" Rikku asks noticing his smile.

Tidus switches to the Caladbolg to everyone's surprise; Yuna is not fazed at this action.

"Why the switch?" Rikku asks noticing the ace changing swords already.

"I'm ready, Yuna are you ready?" Tidus asks Yuna.

"Yep." Yuna answers, then it clicked in Rikku's mind what Tidus was about to do. "Paine, you're going to see something awesome."

"Yeah, right." Paine says sarcastically

"Watch me." Tidus says as he gets into position. "Go!"

Tidus suddenly strikes Leblanc with seven sword slashes; Tidus sticks his sword into the ground and jumps off the handle.

Yuna tosses Tidus the blitzball, Tidus kicks it to Leblanc with such power that it by the time the ball hits her there's an explosion after the impact of the ball.

Paine looked shocked of what Tidus just displayed; Leblanc was just out of it and fell to one knee.

"Is... isn't over. Not yet." Leblanc declared

"It's over Leblanc, you lost." Tidus says, picking up his sword after the display that stopped Leblanc cold.

"Not really, for the Dullwings you lose." Leblanc says as she throws a smoke grenade to the ground as it covered their tracks and everyone.

"Who the hell does she think she is?" Rikku asks furiously

"She's getting hurt." Paine says in a cold tone obviously mad now.

By the time the smoke clears Leblanc and her gang is nowhere to be found.

"Where they go?" Tidus asks

"Probably to the top, there's not a moment to lose." Yuna declares as being the leader she is and leads the group runs toward the top of the mountain.

"By the way, Tidus, what was that move?" Paine asks in astonishment

"Paine, that was my signature move, blitz ace." Tidus answers with confidence

While the Gullwings race to catch up to Leblanc and her group, fate has something planned for the gullwings that will change everyone's lives.

_Somewhere really far away..._

_Location: Really old reactor plant_

_Time: 5:00 pm_

"_You can't do this!" A male warrior protests, obviously something has happened that had to set him off._

"_Watch me; I'll change this world for the better." A mysterious man declared in total calmness in his voice, he was dressed differently than the others, but there was one more that was dressed different as well but he was in disguise._

_First person POV..._

"_Jose, I won't let that happen!" I declare as I run after Jose to a reactor obviously throwing away the disguise I was wearing, I got a tip-off telling me this old reactor plant was being used again but it was guarded; obviously with the disguise I got in as easy, now it's the problem of stopping the use of the reactor since somehow Jose managed to get in, he probably wounded or killed the guards._

"_This is a reactor, Jose what the hell are you up to?" I ask in anger, obviously he does not pay attention to me._

"_Change, everything will change once this reactor is activated" Jose declared as he calmly walks to activate the reactor._

"_That won't happen Jose!" I declare as I pull out my sword to attack Jose_

_Jose however must have seen it coming because he blocked my attack with his sword while not even paying attention to me._

"_How did you-"_

"_Block your attack? Simple cause you're predictable." Jose says as he pushes me away from him with ease as I fall onto the ground with a thud._

"_Now you can't stop progression kid." Jose says as he starts up the reactor_

_The reactor starts up to life, and then a moment later it suddenly it goes out of control._

"_No! The reactor's energy is rising too quickly!" Jose cried out, now there's panic in his voice no longer calm "This isn't how it was supposed to happen!"_

"_Then shut it down! Now!" I tell Jose as I'm getting up, pain through my body flowing like a river._

"_It can't be stopped, the way this energy is raising it might blow us to somewhere else." Jose theorized, and then I go to the reactor controls knocking Jose out of the way and try to stop it before we get blown._

"_Kid, it's too dangerous to stop it now." Jose says, obviously he was up to something but I paid no attention._

"_Not if you try!" I say to Jose as I try to stop the reactor._

"_Core reactor levels critical" a computer voice says_

"_Kid, pull back now." Jose says calmly in a warning way._

"_This was your doing, now I'm-" I was cut off by Jose picking me up by the back of my shirt and throwing me back to the beginning of the bridge._

"_Jose, what the hell was that for?" I ask, now I'm really mad._

"_This reactor... It's time." Jose simply answered to me, I don't know if he was speaking in riddles._

"_You've lost your mind, I'm stopping this reactor." I declare as I charge at Jose sword and all._

"_You ignorant fool." Jose says as he pulls out his sword and we clash right in the middle of the reactor, at the time it seemed like we were evenly matched but I didn't know was that he was holding back._

"_Reactor will self-destruct in 30 seconds." Computer voice warned us_

"_Jose, you went too far this time." I pointed out, I push him away from me as I go and attempt to stop the reactor._

_Jose simply walks behind me and grabs me tossing me back, I had only begun stopping the reactor countdown._

"_15 seconds until reactor self-destructs." Computer voice says_

"_You're insane!" I yelled out, I stand up quickly knowing there's no time to waste and charged at Jose._

_Jose sidesteps me with ease, "You always let your emotions get the best of you, kid." as I go into the keyboard, it was like he was allowing me to stop the reactor ; not wasting time I'm trying to stop the reactor from blowing me and Jose to who knows where._

"_10..."_

_Jose then charges at me knocking me away from the keyboard once more, then I start glowing a feint red as I charge at Jose as he eyes my energy in curiosity. "What the hell was that for? You want to die?"_

"_9..."_

_Jose just smugly smiles, "No, simply put, you're a tool. My tool."_

"_8..."_

"_People are never tools." I declare as I push away Jose, then I attack him with three good hits sending him down the stairs and away from the reactor._

"_7..."_

"_6..."_

"_5 seconds left." the computer says_

_I turn back and try to stop the reactor, what I don't know is that Jose is getting up and obviously headed towards me._

_Jose then attacks me knocking me away from the computer obviously; I was knocked back from the impact of his attack._

"_Almost there. Just a few more seconds and it'll shut down."_

"_You're a gutsy kid." Jose says from behind me, I turned around in shock on how he got up so quickly._

"_3... 2... 1" The computer's countdown was done, and then it starts to blow up._

"_No!" I yell as a blinding white light engulfs me and Jose since he was charging at me._

_By the time the light has vanished there's no trace of the reactor let alone me and Jose._

"_Where they go?" a warrior member asks standing there in complete shock of what had just unfolded in front of him and his buddy._

"_Wherever that light went." Another warrior theorized as they both look into the sky where the light went._

End of chapter 1


	3. The Key has arrived in Spira

Chapter 2: The Key has arrived in Spira

The OC's POV... (A/N: First time using first-person view, let me know how it went and I might do it more often.)

The light actually takes both me and Jose to Spira after our fight, however when I came to I woke up in some sort of water obviously having no idea what happened.

"Hello?" I say, looking around to see where I was, sadly I have no idea where I am. A sudden pain through my body went through me, I guess that pain from me and Jose fighting is slowly going away but it bit me one last time before it went away completely.

"Anyone here?" This place appears to be abandoned, it looked like something big had came past here and destroyed the place.

"Jose?" No response from him, that must mean that he's already gone question is where did he go? 'Did he leave me here and for what reason?' I thought, like I would expect an answer to come to me right now.

"Hey!" I scream as my echo seems to carry for miles. It was official, I was alone in an unfamiliar place let alone possibly somewhere I never seen before.

My surroundings appear to be some sort of ruins, a strange colorful aurora in the air and some monkeys hanging around here.

I get up from the ground and my black trenchcoat is a bit dusty from the battle with Jose, apparently angry at the fact I'm somewhere else and I have no clue where. "Damn you, Jose." I say as I dust off my trenchcoat, my black sweatpants and my black boots.

I turn to notice that my 5 foot sword is stuck in the ground of where I woke up, a bracer was next to it.

"At least I'm alive." I remarked as I pick up my sword and the bracer that was next to it as I walk on the path back to the middle of the path towards Mt. Gagazet.

As I look up to the top of the mountain I see a airship hovering at the top, I look around my surroundings but there's no way to the top of the mountain, with a sigh I continue walking in this quiet place.

As I spot the opening into the mountain I walked into, I was unaware that I was being watched by two strangers on the ship, I guess that they're looking out for something but at that time I simply didn't care if they were watching me walk into the cave.

End POV...

"Who is he?" Brother asks as if Buddy knew the answer

"Don't know, but he is headed down Mt. Gagazet." Buddy informs him

Brother catches sight on the young man's sword, "Buddy, check out his sword he's carrying."

The mysterious young man's sword was well-made, the handle was a good 4 inches, slim base but remarkably tough and the rest was all sword with special marks that was indeed been there or made that way.

Buddy looks at the sword and his face is apparently shocked as Brother's, "That sword is insanely huge, he's our target."

"Why?" Buddy asks wondering why the kid is their target so quickly. '_Again, another dumbass rash decision.'_ Buddy thought.

"Because he's mysterious and that sword we might have to analyze." Brother confirms, Buddy shakes his head in disbelief and disapproval of a stupid explanation.

"Think that we should tell Yuna?"

"When they arrive here with the sphere." Buddy tells Brother.

Suddenly Rikku gets in contact with Buddy.

"Go ahead, Rikku." Buddy says

"Buddy, we got the sphere." Rikku confirmed

"Great, we'll on our way." Buddy says as Brother drives the ship to the group's location.

Once in the group gives the sphere to Shinra, their expert on sphere analyzing.

"Can you analyze the sphere we found?" Paine asks

"I'm on it." Shinra simply answers as he analyzes the sphere that Paine gave him.

"On to bigger matters." Brother says

"Bigger matters?" Yuna repeated

"Yeah, let's show you." Buddy says in an upset tone as he puts up the surveillance cameras of the Celsius.

"Looks like nothing to report." Rikku says

"Let me rewind to a few minutes ago." Buddy shot back, apparently technology was his strong suit and Brother would get lucky on occasion but he wasn't good with it.

The group is a bit shocked to see what the camera captured, the camera catches a young man around Tidus's age, sword in his hand and appearance appears to be a dark medium kid with short hair.

"Tidus, anything?" Yuna asks as she eyes her boyfriend waiting for a response from him.

All Tidus can do is shake his head in a "no" response.

Yuna goes closer to Tidus, "Do you think he is the key?" she whispers to him.

"He could be." Tidus answered, but seemed uncertain of it by the way he was saying that.

"Your mission Gullwings is to bring him in, fight him if he resists but DON'T kill him." Brother informs.

"We'll bring him in." Rikku declares

"What about the sphere?" Buddy asks

"It'll be ready by the time they're done." Shinra confirms in a calm manner

"Let's go!" Tidus says as the group heads down the last spot the picture was taken, out onto the outskirts of Zanarkand.

"Good thing Buddy made an extra copy." Tidus says as he examines the picture of the target

"Great, now let's find that kid." Yuna declared as the group heads down into Mt. Gagazet.

As the group heads down from the peaks of Mt. Gagazet, as everyone went ahead the only one that had difficulty getting around was Tidus due to his inexperience not only on the peaks but sphere hunting altogether was a new challenge for the young man. While Rikku and Paine went on ahead Yuna stayed behind as she helped Tidus over to her side of the cliff earning herself a peck on the cheek resulting in a flushed Yuna.

"Thanks, Yuna." Tidus said to his girlfriend "Remember how happy we were when we reunited?"

"How can I forget?" Yuna asked as she remembered the day when Tidus returned to her.

_Flashback 6 months ago..._

_As Yuna, Rikku and Paine each awaited Besaid Island after their victory defeating Shuyin who was controlling Vegnagun to destroy Spira attempting to avenge the loss of his lover Lenne who in some ways reminded Yuna for her love for Tidus who at that point was seemed to be lost forever but everyone had no idea that a certain blonde blitzer was returning due to the fayth restoring him. Tidus wakes up surrounded in water as he stretches as if he waking up from a nap, he swims up to catch his breath as he sees an island he recognized the island right away. That's when he knew where he was at, he had returned home to Besaid._

_Then he remembered why he was here, the image of Yuna as he last saw her drove him to see her as he let out a sharp whistle remembering what Yuna had told him if they get lost as he waited for a response as no response came back he swam to the island._

_As he walked onto the beach he hears a loud rumble, turns around and sees an airship heading towards him as if flew over him water went up as it landed unaware that the ramp was released and Yuna jumped out._

_Tidus then smiled at Yuna as she came running into his arms as the two embrace each other, not moving in the embrace Yuna asked him "Are you real?"_

"_I think so." was his answer, he sounded unsure how he returned but that thought was dispelled quickly when Yuna steps back and gets a good look at her, sure she trimmed her hair to where it was spiky on the end like Tidus's, the pink hoodie similar to his, the infamous Jecht symbol between her breasts and Yuna's one pant leg was so longer in the other so her legs often stood out as she looked at him as Tidus asked her "Do I pass?"_

_Yuna nods at him smiling, her hands was on Tidus's chest looking at him "You're back." _

"_I am back." Tidus then pulls Yuna into an embracing hug "I'm home."_

"_Welcome home." Yuna greeted lovingly as then she wrapped her arms around him, "Yes home." Rikku then giggled at the two as Paine let out a rare laugh as the two stayed in each others embrace for a while until a thick voice is heard._

"_Hey, get a room you two!" The whole village had shown up cheering for not only Yuna saving the world once again, but the blitzball team was in awe of Tidus's return after he disappeared two years ago after Sin was defeated. Tidus and Yuna look as not only the whole village was there to cheer for her as Wakka simply waves at Tidus and says "Wassup!"_

_Tidus looks at Yuna as her face was beet red trying to hide her face beside him, Tidus replies to Wakka's comment with "Who asked you to watch, Wakka?" Wakka tried to act offended but couldn't fool anybody, Lulu sneaked in a smile as she holds baby Vidina. Then Tidus takes Yuna's hand and goes towards the beach to everyone that was there until Yuna starts taking the lead holding his hand and takes him to the village._

_End flashback..._

"That's one thing we'll never forget." Yuna says looking at Tidus "Let's create more happy memories together."

"Alright, but we have time for that." Tidus saying focusing on the job at hand "Now let's get that sphere." and with that the two catch up to their teammates.

End of chapter 2


	4. Fate Unites The Two

Chapter 3: Fate unites the two

The Gullwings head into Mt. Gagazet with the intent to bring the mysterious kid in, however the kid thinks he is being watched evidenced by distant footsteps he heard from behind him.

"Who's there?" he demanded, not wanting to get caught off-guard, he was in a unfamiliar environment fighting unfamiliar animals whatever-they-are; sometimes he wondered how he's not dead yet.

The Gullwings don't answer to his call obviously they can hear him due to his voice echoing in the cave, they decide to hide behind some stalagmites "That was close." Tidus whispers to the group, Rikku had her hands over her mouth knowing she can be quite loud, Yuna and Paine were the only quiet ones out of the group at the moment.

"Yeah, who knew he could hear us?" Rikku asks in a low voice.

"Remember, we have to bring him in." Yuna reminded everyone to stay focus, luckily she dragged Tidus for the mission.

"I'm not returning empty-handed." Paine says to the group, she had intent on capturing the target no matter what it took.

Rikku and Paine went on ahead of Yuna and Tidus, "You think he's here?" Yuna asked Tidus.

"I believe so, remember what the fayth told us?" Tidus asked holding her hand, Yuna gives him a assuring nod.

"What are you talking about?" Rikku asks coming back after her and Paine noticed that the couple weren't following them.

"Nothing." Tidus answered, Rikku gives him a skeptical look "Are you certain? You seem pretty distracted Tidus." Paine says, even through she asked a question she remains quite calm.

"Kinda, I'm not too sure." Yuna says, Tidus looks back as if he doesn't want her to explain herself, it was true she explained herself on her journey to find out what happened to Tidus but eventually she got tired of it.

"Yuna, don't holdout any info on us. Unless you're talking something secret." Rikku winks at the two resulting in flustered faces from the both of them. "They weren't talking about that." Paine cuts in trying to distract Rikku from the couple.

"Then, what were you talking about?" Rikku asks, obviously confused about this whole ordeal not as going as she wanted it to go.

"Didn't you say the Fayth told you guys something?" Paine asks, Rikku looked shocked at the question Paine said it.

"Well... Yes." Yuna says as then she and Tidus then explained what the fayth had told them while Paine and Rikku listened to every word of the explanation.

"So the boy in the picture might be the key?" Paine asks.

"That's what we think as of right now." Yuna answered with a assuring voice.

"Well what are we waiting for? Let's get him." Rikku says and with that everyone starts following the young man not wanting to lose him.

he continued to walk down Mt. Gagazet but never letting down his guard believing that he was being followed, 'If I'm being followed, they'll have the advantage here.' he thought as he continued walking slowly starting to feel the effects of those animal-things attacking him.

The Gullwings follow the kid's trail thanks to Yuna and Tidus, since they know Mt. Gagazet well enough the Gullwings had the advantage at the moment.

The kid see two paths on the road he's walking on at the moment, one path leads to an dead end but what about the other? he decided to go down the other path on the right hoping to avoid being followed. "Let's hope this will lose those pursuers." he softly says.

The Gullwings eventually run into the same fork in the road as the kid did, but they don't know that.

"Where did he went?" Paine says in a impatient tone

"The right path." Yuna pointed out

"Paine, try to relax." Rikku suggests, seeing her comrade wound up like that is not something she like, in her mind she would have a nice calm Paine than a mean one any day of the week.

"Yeah, how would you know he would have went right?" Paine asks calmly now

"Simple, the front path is an dead end while the other leads to the exit and the Ronso." Yuna answered

Soon the Gullwings were on his trail following the kid's movement.

Again, footsteps are heard from behind the young man.

"Who's there? You better stop following me!" He yelled out as he got his sword ready, now feeling the pain of the fight as he waited for a response.

Again no response from anyone.

"I know you're there, reveal yourself!" He demanded.

he walked back to this open part of the cave what he failed to realize was that it was a trap waiting for him.

He stop and looked around, "It's just a empty field." he said, "Don't get too caught up."

As the kid turn back to the path obviously leaving, he heard gunshots hitting the ground near him as he avoided the shots or tried to anyway in his hurt condition.

"Don't move." A female voice warned him as he stopped in his tracks and turned to see who was shooting.

He turned around to see a female of around 19 years of age, her hands held two pistols, her eyes are filled with serious determination not to let him leave.

"Who are you?" Yuna asked him.

"That's none of your concern." he answered calmly, obviously she didn't like the answer he gave her.

"Let me ask you again, who the hell are you?" Yuna repeated, this time she was getting angry, obviously impatient with the kid as she reloaded her pistols.

"Like I said before, none of your damn business." The kid answers Yuna in an irritated manner similar to Yuna.

"You probably should have just answered the question, kid." Paine says stepping out from behind their hiding place sword in hand.

"Great, two on one." The kid points out, it would seem like he had enough on his hands obviously injured but Yuna and Paine don't see that he's hurt at the moment.

Footsteps are heard as Tidus joins the group.

"You think we would let you get away? Not happening." Tidus says as he joins the circle, obviously pumped up about finally finding the target after all that searching.

"Don't forget about me." Rikku says as she speeds in the circle then hitting Tidus playfully in the arm, the look between the two friends was more than make you laugh as Tidus gave Rikku a 'are you serious' look to her.

"Four on one?" The kids exclaims in shock of the odds, well he had fought three on one before but four on one was a whole new game to him and now hurt it was next to hard.

"We're here to bring-"

"Me in? Won't happen." The kid says as he gets into battle position with his sword drawn cutting off what Yuna had to say.

"Looks like we'll make you come with us." Yuna declares as everyone got into their battle positions.

Rikku attacks him first but it does very little damage due to the kid using his sword to protect himself.

"What the hell?" Rikku says with a confused look on her face, the kid has no knowledge that she was in her thief sphere.

'Man she's cute' He thought 'This isn't the time to be distracted by her looks! obviously she was showing more than her attacks, her smooth legs was somehow glistening, her curves in all the right places.

The kid decided to attack the black-clad warrior he didn't know as Paine, which he did some damage to her.

"He's got a mean swing, I'll give him that." Paine remarked

"Which is why I didn't do much damage on him." Rikku theorized sounding unsure

"I'll take a crack at him, guys." Tidus says as he strikes the kid but like Rikku does little damage.

"Nothing." Tidus remarked as his strike does little damage also.

"He's got good defense." Yuna complemented

"Yeah, but how do we lower it?"

"Hmm, I guess we wear him down." Yuna answers but not as confident as she was before.

'Those guys strikes are okay, but my defense should hold up despite my injuries.' He thought as then he runs to attack Tidus which set him back a bit due to the power of his attack as he smacks a wall back first.

"Tidus!" Yuna cried out as she rushes over to her lover, Tidus is down to one knee as he spits out a little blood in his mouth after he fell to the ground.

"Yuna, I'm ok." he tells her trying to comfort her as she gives him a hi-potion, Tidus switches to his celestial weapon the caladbolg seeing how serious his target was.

"Looks like you're in trouble." Rikku points out after her two strikes do little to the kid.

"Yeah right." he says after he strikes Paine again doing some damage to her but she's still standing.

'Man, she's tough.' he thought after seeing Paine still standing.

"You ready for this?" Tidus exclaims as he got into position

Tidus suddenly strikes the kid with several sword strikes as he deflected his sword from defending him, he was wide open to attack after attack as Tidus then he puts his sword in the ground.

"What are you doing?" He ask Tidus

"Just watch." he simply answered as Yuna tosses him the blitzball and with Tidus's unbelievable leg strength kicks it to the kid and does some real damage.

The kid was down on one knee after Tidus's move, 'I never seen anything like it.' he thought in amazement. 'and I thought my defense would hold up it turns out it was broken.'

"Will you give up now?" Tidus asks after he switches his sword to his water sword.

"No." he answered "I have to stop him, and you guys won't stop me!" he gets up from the ground.

"You guys have put me to the edge!" he declared as he suddenly glowed a fiery orange-red around him, then I first jump in the air and bring down my sword on Paine severely damaging her.

"What the hell?" Yuna protested in shock from what she just saw.

"I never seen anyone move that fast!" Rikku exclaims now surprised.

Soon the kid goes in front of Tidus and hits him with three devastating slashes breaking though Tidus's guard sending him to a wall knocking him out not only from the attack but from the impact on the wall.

"Tidus!" Yuna screamed to him, now she was angry as the fire in her eyes returned.

Yuna re-loaded her pistols and did Trigger Happy with anger in her eyes firing at the kid.

The result of the firing wears down the kid a little more than Tidus's blitz ace did even though he was blocking the bullets some did get through of what was left of his defense.

"You would still get in my way after I've refused?" He questioned Yuna's resolve to bring him in.

"Yes, because we have to bring you in." Yuna answered in an honest manner, now the kid was barely able to stand with the sword in his right hand feeling like a thousand pounds right about now.

"I'll help with that." Paine says as she gets into a position of her own.

"What are you doing?" Yuna asks questioning Paine's motives, she didn't want to kill the kid but Paine wanted to make sure he was out for the count.

"This, Darkness Fang!" Paine yelled out by sticking her sword into the ground and a darkish-purple energy comes up and hits the kid knocking him on the ground hard with a yell from the kid.

"Will you give up now?" Yuna asks calmly after Paine's sudden attack.

The kid barely gets up after the darkness attack, but he's too exhausted to fight let alone stand. Pain is going through his body as if it was on fire.

"Give up, kid!" Rikku demanded, now inching closer to him, he could see the fire in her emerald green eyes, and for some reason he felt drawn to them.

"No... I must stop him." He says as he gets a firm grip on my sword and stand up.

'_He's tougher than Paine_' Rikku thought in amazement as she gets ready to strike the kid

"Down you go!" Rikku declares as she runs to the kid to finish off the fight

"No...You won't get in my way!" He declared as he dodged Rikku's attack despite the kid's low strength and pain coursing though him as he dug deep for one last chance.

"What the-? That's impossible!" Rikku pointed out, how could anyone move that fast with low energy was behind belief even to her.

"Not really, It's my desire to win." He says as he runs to Paine with three good slashes knocking her out while sending her to a wall as payback for the Darkness Fang attack.

Yuna does trigger happy again along with Rikku's strikes finally brings the kid down after a few moments.

Rikku uses two phoenix downs to Paine and Tidus waking them up from their knocked out state.

"Finally!" Rikku exclaimed as the fight was over, she and Yuna were exhausted.

"Now kid, you lost the fight but you need to come with us." Tidus says in a calm manner

"What about him?" The kid said between breaths

"Who is this guy that you keep saying 'him?'" Tidus asks

"It's nothing important." The kid lies as he stands up from the fight using his sword for support even though he's in a lot of pain.

Then suddenly the blonde girl known to the group as Rikku stands up in front of me, then asks me "Is it important to find this person?"

"To tell you the truth, I not sure if he's here." he answered honestly, not only he's hurt from the battle but he's hurting from fighting those animals or whatever-they-are.

"Now let's bring you in." Yuna declared

The kid shakes his head in refusal.

"Rikku?"

Rikku nods in approval.

"What's going on?" he asked them.

Rikku walks up and is standing in front of him.

"Cunno." Rikku said

"Cunno?" He repeats in confusion of what she said.

Then BAM!

A sudden blow to his stomach drops him on his knees as the sword drops with him, his vision going blurry and as he fall onto the ground then his vision before going dark seeing the group in front of him as his world goes dark..

End of chapter 3

A/N: Simply put I gave Paine Auron's overdrive but with different names because of these reasons

They're both warriors

They don't talk a lot

More action a.k.a. Bad-asses

Due to the lack of reviews, I might stop the story before it gets interesting. If I get 4 reviews I'll be more motivated to continue with the story. Read and Review!


	5. I'm at where?

A/N: Thanks to Islambouli96 for the nice review, I also have to thank Pink Nymphetamine for cheering me up when I was down. Now to present Chapter 4.

_Chapter 4: I'm at where?_

As the kid was stirring as he slowly opened his eyes, he sits up to get a better view of his surroundings "Great." He muttered to himself "First I appear in an unknown world and now I'm captured, that's just fucking great. Luke would be pissed."

**At the bridge...**

"Alright we brought him in." Paine confirms to Buddy, he may not have seen it on her face but Paine was satisfied about bringing the young warrior in, he had proven himself to be quite a opponent during their fight.

"Good job, where is he?" Buddy asks while he analyzes the kid's sword he didn't want Brother to look at it so he took the matter in his own hands, since they had dropped off the kid in the cabin, it took Paine,Yuna, and Tidus to carry the kid's sword.

"In the cabin room." Yuna answered "We found out he was hurt actually. His injuries were not as serious at first, however he was injured before the fight and more injured after but he'll be fine with rest and potions."

"Sounds good to hear, by the way his sword is unbelievable." Buddy says in amazement, the kid's sword had a small-medium sized handle for two hands, but the sword itself was huge.

"It looks heavy." Rikku says looking at it.

"That's because it is heavy." Paine obviously made her point clear to Rikku after trying to bring it in with Yuna and Tidus earlier.

"I wonder what are those two small holes are for." Tidus points out on the sword, the sword's design apparently has everyone's attention but they knew later that the time for that would come.

"Shinra, what about the sphere?" Rikku asked, she was getting impatient with Paine's mood swings as they were looking at the kid's sword.

"The sphere process is done, it's just a regular movie sphere, it doesn't seem to have any special functions." Shinra said "Here I'll show you." as he plays the sphere.

The movie sphere shows a town back in it's glory days, brightly lit up.

"Peaceful once again." A male voice "What a thrill to see the town like this."

After a moment of the sphere the group debates rather if it's worth anything

"Think it's worth something?" Rikku asks thinking for a moment

"Trash." Paine says seeing to her that it had no information on it at all.

"But we can use it as a dress sphere." Shinra confirmed, he sure knew his stuff when it came to spheres.

"What about our guest?" Tidus wondered in curiosity as he has his hands behind his head in an relaxing gesture.

"Let's go pay him a visit then." Rikku encourages as the group goes to the cabin room.

_**In the cabin room...**_

"I wonder where am I." the kid asked himself as he gets his trenchcoat and puts it back on. He looks to find his gloves next to a lamp as he put those back on. Then suddenly he stops, he feels a sharp pain across his body only to see that his ribs were bandaged up, "No blood, must have been healed by potions." he says to myself as he analyzed himself. Now the kid looks for his sword only to not find it.

"Great, it's not here." he says "Damn, I wonder where it is."

Suddenly, footsteps are heard from behind the door. He stands and wait to see it was the group that he fought earlier today.

"Good, you're up." Paine says to him, apparently she and the group that he fought came together as he tried to defend myself.

"Before you think of even fighting us, we need some answers from you." Tidus told him as the kid started to relax but he wasn't going to let down his guard even though he didn't have a sword at the moment.

"Okay, what answers?" he asked the group, he knew if he tried to fight through the group to escape he would have lost and with ease; but that didn't stop him from clenching his fists. "One, who are you?" Yuna asked him. he knew at the moment it would have been in trouble if he didn't answer but Yuna did look relatively calm at the moment 'better answer an calm girl than an angry girl.' he thought.

"My name is Darnell." he answered but he didn't want to and he knew it, then he slowly started to calm down at a slow rate.

"I'm Yuna." the gunner girl introduced as the two shook hands.

"Paine." Paine simply says, no handshake from her.

"I'm Tidus." He introduced as he shook my hand, but we never knew things would only change from that moment on.

"And I'm Rikku." She cheerfully merries in still energetic as ever.

"Nice to meet you." he says as he takes off my right glove and shake her hand.

_'Man, her hands are soft.' _He thought with a soft blush on his face but only Rikku saw it.

Darnell puts his glove back on, "Now since the familiarities are over, how about you come on the bridge with us?" Yuna asked him.

"Uh...Sure." he says with uneasiness but he was still curious about this group at the moment.

When the group along with Darnell walks to the bridge, Rikku seems to have something on her mind although no one seems to notice.

'_He's cute, where did that thought come from?' _Rikku thought. _ 'I don't know why I'm thinking about him like this even through I just met him_.' her cheeks are a slight pink, she tries to dismiss her blush before anyone could catch it.

"So what do you think of the airship?" Tidus asks the new member of the group.

"It's good so far." Darnell answers, sure he was astounded about the ship itself but the group had most of his attention. It hurt for him to breathe at times, he winced in pain once in a while to his surprise Rikku notices this and pats the kid's shoulder as she gives him a potion for the pain to which he accepted before she turned back to everyone else.

"So you like Spira so far?" Yuna asks the warrior, the answer which came next was unexpected.

"I'm at where?" He says suddenly, then the group turns to look at him in shock.

"What?" Everyone says in disbelief in their voice.

"You don't remember?" Rikku asks him, obviously looking at him with shock on her face.

"Rikku, you were the one that hit me." he points out bluntly. "And I was injured when I ran into you guys."

"Oh yeah, sorry. You remember anything else before that?" She asks the new kid obviously scratching her head.

"Uh, yeah." then he starts to tell them what he remembered before they met.

He remembered the caves of Mt. Gagazet, our little scuffle and how he came here.

"Say that again." Paine requested him to say

"I woke up here at some ruins because I was engulfed in a bright light." he repeated again _'I don't want_ _to say that I got blown up here_._'_ he thought but he dismissed that thought quickly.

"I heard that one before." Rikku says as she looks at Tidus his expression on his face said all.

"You too?" he asked the bronze blitzer.

"Yeah, two years ago." Tidus confirmed as he told him."Long story short, you're in Spira." Darnell's face seems confused at this info as he tries to sort it all out in his head.

The group to go to the bridge, as the group goes into the bridge Buddy, Brother and Shinra were waiting.

"Welcome kid." Buddy greeted him.

"Who are you?" he asked, Darnell hasn't met this guy before but it was his first time meeting him.

"I'm Buddy." He introduced "This is Brother, and the little one behind you is Shinra."

"And you are?" Brother asks me, all his hair was a light yellow mohawk; Darnell obviously wanted to say something but thought it would be a bad idea.

"I'm Darnell, nice to meet you all." he introduced himself, everyone seemed to acknowledge him_._

Darnell then looks to where Buddy was as he was standing at a table analyzing something, as Darnell walked over he sees that Buddy was analyzing his sword. "Hey, that's my sword." he said in a not shocked but a bit angry way.

"Hey hey, calm down. I just analyzed it." Buddy explains in his defense "How is it that you can wield a sword like this?"

"It's a long story." he simply says as he lifts it off the table, apparently he just picks it up as if it weighted nothing at all, everyone who had seen him lift it with one arm apparently were stunned at his display of strength.

Rikku walks to him and helps him due to him breathing sort of hard due to rage; apparently retrieving his sword did more harm than good. Rikku gives him a potion to ease the pain, Darnell is now able to hold it and pick it up.

"So any new spheres?" Rikku asks Buddy

"Nope, nothing." Buddy says confirming

"Ok then, let's go to Besaid then." Rikku suggests "I wonder how Wakka is doing?"

"Next stop, Besaid Island!" Brother confirms and the ship flies to Besaid.

"Besaid? Where is that?" he asked Rikku, at the moment he felt more comfortable around her but he doesn't know why.

"You'll see." was all the Al Bhed girl said.

While the Gullwings and company fly to Besaid they have no idea a new evil is brewing and gaining strength.

_**At an unknown location...**_

A mysterious man wakes up and he's in a unfamiliar place, he looks around to see it's a cavern of some sorts; unaware that he was being watched. Not one to let something or someone get the best of him he gets the feeling now that someone was watching him. He simply says "Show yourself, I know you're there." to see if someone was there.

Then he sees a really big shadow over him sitting on what appears to be a throne, the shadow's size appears to be twice the man's size but that didn't phase him at all.

"Hmm, took you long enough." The man says, he sure sounds curious to find out who is this mysterious figure but is calm as always.

"I don't answer to scum like you" a mysterious figure tells him, this apparently set the man off from the inside.

"I'm no scum, but I guess it takes one to know one." the man answers

"Don't make me kill you." the mysterious figure says but he says in an threatening tone.

"Hmm, you couldn't do that." he says in a evil yet cocky way.

Then the shadow king attacked the man as his fist met nothing but cold steel, his fist met the man's longsword, his sword was light and agile as the same air he withdrew from it from moaned as the sword cut the air.

"Fighting me is a mistake." the man said as he swung his sword in retaliation attacking the shadow as the two combatants fight, as the man attacks the mysterious figure objects are being destroyed such as plates, glasses and other little mysterious figures are running for their lives as the two fight around the place as the man is not breaking a sweat but seeing frustration build on the figure's face as the figure can't land a blow on the man.

The dark figure charges up a punch to defeat the man once and for all but then the attack was blocked by the longsword of the man as the figure struggled to get through to the man's sword, the man pushes the figure's attack off him. Now vulnerable, the man has some dark-purple energy around him as then he unleashes several sword attacks at the figure as he feels steel ripping his skin as the attack continued for a few more seconds before the last slash ended with an explosion from the slash sending him to the wall as the man approaches him. "Told you that was a mistake." he said.

"Wait, you don't understand." he said not only amazed at this man's strength but also at the fact that he was beaten so quickly, no one ever beat this figure before.

"Now, what do you want to know?" the figure said, if that didn't stop the man from striking him nothing will.

"Well, I want to know who are you and where am I." was the man's answer as he takes the sword away from his chest and now holding it.

"You're in the seal of the shadows, we've been sealed here for four hundred years." the figure answered. "Who are you anyway?"

"My name is Jose." he said, he was a balanced man around his early 30's but he looked like he was in his mid 20's, balanced physique as his dark hair was down to his shoulders.

"Jose, they call me 'The Shadow King'." he tells him. "No one has ever beaten me, problem is that we can't get through this seal." Jose then walks up to the seal as he examines it. "Even with my strength that seal holds it."

"That's because you need more power until you break the seal, I bet I can break it." Jose said calmly as the Shadow King looked at him like he was crazy, but he knew if he wanted to be free Jose might be his best chance.

"Alright, you can help with the breaking through the seal." the King said, "But first we'll wait until tomorrow, that is unless you're too impatient."

"Tomorrow will do fine." Jose notes as the King guides him to a room to use for when tomorrow comes, Spira may never be the same.

End of chapter 4


	6. The Gullwings return to Besaid

Chapter 5: The Gullwings return to Besaid

Once the Celsius sets down at the beach of Besaid the group leaves the ship behind to see Wakka and Lulu.

"This is Besaid, a beautiful place isn't it?" Rikku asks Darnell as Darnell's head was looking around.

"Yeah, peaceful and beautiful. But hot too." he remarks at the sight of the island while looking around taking in the sight of it, so he stops after a few moments to pay attention to what's in front of them as he fanned himself so he keep cool.

as the group goes onto the path to the town of Besaid, five coyotes came out of nowhere and attacked them.

"Coyotes again?" Darnell says in an irritated manner, he's annoyed by earlier seeing these things.

"They're common here along with other fiends." Yuna informed him, Darnell apparently doesn't like the sound of it.

One coyote bites Tidus doing little damage to him, he attacks that coyote and kills it.

"Four left." he counts

Darnell casts thunder doing major damage to the second coyote, as that coyote was stunned a bit due to the thunder a speeding Rikku comes in and strikes with her weapons killing the second one.

"Nice work, Rikku." Darnell complemented at Rikku's sudden speed.

Rikku giggles a bit "Thanks, you too."Darnell has no idea that she was blushing pink but he didn't look into it too much.

Suddenly one of the coyotes had strange energy going into it, now it appears as a glowing dark blue energy inside it as Yuna and everyone else but Darnell and Tidus seemed worried as the girls face were one of shock.

"What's with the coyote?" Darnell asked after seeing this energy going into it.

"It oversouled!" Yuna warns the boys, now the boys seem anxious at this oversouled creature trying to cover up their nervousness.

"This could be bad." Tidus said in concern

The oversouled coyote runs so fast to Rikku at she was unable to dodge it like she normally could, as a result the coyote bites Rikku and knocks her out with one hit. "Rikku!" Darnell exclaims as he runs over to a fallen Rikku.

Yuna, Paine and Tidus each attack the other coyotes as they die. But the upgraded coyote runs over to Darnell and the fallen Rikku, Yuna and the others tries to slow it down but to no avail but the coyote doesn't die, Darnell grabs a phoenix down his pocket to heal Rikku but as he does the coyote leaps up and bites Darnell's right arm causing him to drop the phoenix down and his sword also screaming in pain as they both go rolling down the hill.

"You guys go, I'll wake up Rikku!" Tidus tells Paine and Yuna as Yuna nods and runs after the beast.

Tidus picks up Darnell's phoenix down and uses it to revive Rikku, a groggy Rikku looked up to see Tidus standing over her."Tidus, what happened?" Rikku asks groggily after waking up as she stood up..

"The coyote has bitten Darnell and they're both rolling down the hill." Tidus explains in short time but very fast to the girl.

"What?" Rikku exclaims in shock one receiving the news, surprisingly understanding Tidus at this time.

"Come on." Tidus motioned as the two catch up to Yuna and Paine down the hill to catch up with the others but unaware to Tidus Rikku sees Darnell's sword and starts dragging it down the hill feeling the weight of his sword.

By the time the duo gets to the bottom of the hill Paine is slashing the coyote but it does little good while Yuna gets in a few shots but isn't feeling the shots at the time. The coyote is ripping the right sleeve of Darnell's trenchcoat.

"He's got my trenchcoat sleeve!" he cried out as the coyote rips the sleeve completely off his coat

Darnell manages to roll away from the coyote, he starts to charge thunder in his hand as the coyote charges at him then suddenly...

BAM!

Yuna shoots the coyote in the head effectively killing it.

"Nice shot, Yuna." he said in relief now knowing the coyote is dead.

"It was no trouble." Yuna says in total assurance of herself.

"Darnell, you okay?" Rikku asked him as she ran over to see if he was injured during the fight dropping his sword to the ground obviously only caring for his safety. She was also trying to look at his bandages but to no avail.

"I'm fine, Rikku thanks." he says as he goes and picks up his sword as suddenly a black cloth is blowing in the wind, it was his right sleeve that was torn off completely.

"Wanna fix your trenchcoat?" Rikku asked him.

"Not really, I thought of another use for this." he said as he picked up his sleeve appearing as if he was examining it.

"And that would be-" Rikku started to say as then she was cut off was Darnell.

"This." he finished as he wrapped the torn sleeve on Rikku's right arm as a gift.

Then she noticed his exposed right arm that the coyote had during the scuffle, "No bite marks."

"Hmm, guess not." he says as Rikku looks at her gift as Darnell looked at his arm and wondered how the coyote couldn't get it the first time.

"Aw, that's sweet of you." Rikku complements him as again he look at her as she's blushing again.

"Now let's go to Besaid." he says as the group started to leave them behind.

"But first, here's your sword." Rikku says as she picks up the handle of the sword and hands it to him.

"Thanks, now let's go." He said as then he looked at the trail the sword was dragged from by the girl. 'I know you dragged my sword to me.' he thought but it was a good thing he didn't say it out loud.

As they walk to the entrance of Besaid Darnell and Rikku have no idea that Yuna, Paine and Tidus are talking amongst themselves looking back at the two as they caught up with the trio.

"So what do you think?" Yuna asked Tidus.

"Of what?" Tidus says confusedly

"Of Rikku?"

"I think she likes him." Paine points out, no one knew she was looking at the slowly blushing girl.

"And I think he likes her." Tidus says but when they look back again towards Darnell there's a hard sign to show that he likes her other than him staying close to her as they catch up at the moment.

"Oh yeah, big time." Yuna agreed at this theory not knowing if it's true or not as everyone's together now.

As the Gullwings make their way to Besaid, someone's already there to greet them.

"Well, if it isn't Yuna for a visit." A man says, he appeared to be waiting in front of the towns gates for them.

"Nice to see you, Wakka." Yuna greeted the man, it seems Wakka was trying to get his physical strength back but since the baby was born he hasn't had much time to train but at least he was getting there.

"Looks like you having fun." Wakka notices Yuna's grin on her face and Tidus's as well.

"Yeah, if you can call it that."

"Well Tidus, you enjoyed your little adventure?" Wakka eyes the boy with curiosity

"Yeah it was fun." Tidus answers the question with his laid back persona showing.

"Your friend?" Wakka points to Darnell, obviously unaware to mostly everyone but Rikku but he hadn't talked much since he had seen Wakka.

"He's Darnell, tubby." Rikku introduces as she elbows Wakka in the ribs

"Hey, hey, cut it out ya?" Wakka protested at the girl.

"Why does she do that?" Darnell asks Yuna with a confused look on his face.

"She does it to annoy him." Yuna answered, Darnell simply nods at this.

"You guys wanna see Lu?"

"Of course." Rikku answers as she runs to the hut of Wakka and Lulu.

As everyone goes in to see Lulu, Darnell seems hesitant to speak which only Rikku seems to notice.

"Don't worry, she's really nice." Rikku whispers to him, Darnell seems to calm down a bit since Rikku noticed he tensed up a bit when he entered the hut.

"I'll take your word for it." he whispered back to which Rikku poked him in the ribs making Darnell jump away from her.

"Well hello to all." Lulu greets the group.

"Hi, Lulu." Yuna says

"Well, don't you aren't bursting with happiness." Lulu noticed as Yuna is a lot more happier than two years ago when Tidus at first left Spira.

"How's Vidina?" Rikku asks the former guardian

"Fine, he's asleep." Lulu answers as she points to the crib a sleeping Vidina layed there with an innocent look on his sleeping face.

'So that's Vidina.' Darnell thought as he looked at the sleeping baby.

"Who's this?" Lulu asks pointing to Darnell.

"I'm Darnell, a new member of the Gullwings." he introduced himself in a friendly manner

"Nice to meet you." Lulu says to him.

"So you guys are visiting?" Wakka asked the group.

"Yep." Yuna answered

"Lu, I'll keep watch here." Wakka offered

"Thanks Wakka, why don't you guys look around town?" Lulu suggested to everyone.

"Sure." Yuna accepts as the Gullwings go take a look around Besaid for a while.

As everyone goes looking around in town, Darnell seems less hesitant to take action and look around, that's when Lulu shows up not long after.

'_Man, I feel out of place. Makes me wonder if I'm here for a reason_.' Darnell thought, just as he was going to look around Lulu comes from behind him.

"Darnell, I need to talk to you." Lulu tells the young warrior.

"Ok, what about?" he asks curiously

"You, let's take a walk." she offered as him and Lulu leave the town to take a walk on the path out of town.

"So other than you're a new Gullwing I know nothing about you." Lulu explained to him.

"I know, but I like being a Gullwing." he told her

"But where did you come from?" Lulu asked him, Darnell looked up at the sky.

"I came from a big town, filled with life until one day everything changed." He explained to Lulu

"What happened?" Lulu asked him obviously wanting to know more.

"I worked at an company that trained warriors for a while and I was assigned to keep watch of a section of an old reactor that was being repaired, however a former member of the warriors named Jose was in the same reactor as me and I didn't know he was there."

"So what happened to Jose?"

"After one mission Jose returned differently, then he went insane and attacked us, at the reactor he overloaded the old reactor."

"Now why would he do that?" Lulu asks in shock of the news but still wanting to hear Darnell's story.

"He wanted to change something, I tried to stop him but the reactor blew causing me and possibly him to be here in Spira." he finished obviously now not wanting to talk about it.

"Wow, so that's how you came here." Lulu realized but notices his sword that's he carrying in his hands, "But how can you carry around a big sword like that?"

"Special training." he answered but to Lulu it sounded like he was hiding something. "So how do you know Yuna?"

"Well, I was like a sister to her, also I was one of her guardians as a black mage." Lulu informed of him of what she did two years prior.

As Darnell and Lulu were walking along the path a flan monster appeared and was in their way.

"What is that?" he asked Lulu never seeing this kind of enemy before.

"A flan, or an elemental flan." Lulu answered him in an calm manner. Darnell decided to attack it head on doing very little to it as it stood it's ground appearing to be laughing at him.

"Only magic will beat the flan." Lulu informed him in an blunt manner.

'_Oh now she tells me_' he thought as he felt a little angry not knowing that until now.

The flan retaliates a water spell on Lulu doing little to the experienced mage.

"There's four elemental spells and flans, there's fire, ice, thunder and water. You follow?" Lulu asked him.

"Sure, go on." he said wanting to hear more info from her.

"Fire and ice oppose each other as lighting and water, this one is a water fiend so..."

"A thunder spell should beat it." he answered with confidence.

Lulu nods at the answer '_He's a quick learner._' she thought, then Darnell charges thunder as it lands on the water flan killing it with one hit.

"Impressive." Lulu noticed as his potential with magic was there, "So you know any other black magic?"

"No, thunder is all I know right now." he answered honestly looking down.

"Hmm, you seem to have potential. How about I teach you the other element spells?" Lulu offered him.

"I accept, Lulu." Darnell accepted without even thinking about it.

"Okay, I'll teach you the fire spell." Lulu instructed "Think of something hot."

"All right." he said as he thought of something hot, like a meteor on fire.

The first try he did was a flutter of a fire, "You'll get it, just focus." Lulu instructed him as he tightened his focus and was able to execute the spell perfectly.

"You catch on fast." Lulu commented

"Thank you." he accepted.

"Now for ice think of something cold."

Darnell thought of snow as then he was able to cast blizzard.

"That's good for a beginner." Lulu says

He thinks of water next as he focused a water spell well enough hitting a target.

"You have potential." Lulu remarked

"Thanks, anything else?" he asked feeling confident at getting the basics of black magic.

"There's more black magic for you to learn but until your magic is strong enough for the level two spells, I can't teach you those at the moment."

"Oh, thanks anyway Lulu." he said sounding a little disappointed, to Lulu Darnell reminded her of Tidus in a way. She couldn't quite put her finger on it but maybe it was their energy level and Darnell's cheerfulness.

"It was no problem, now let's head back." Lulu instructs as she walks back to town with him.

When the two come back to town he was surprised to see Wakka and the Gullwings were still around town, he noticed each Gullwing member was in different places. "Why don't you look around, I'll be home if you need any info." Lulu informs him.

"Thanks, Lulu." he tells her as she goes back home. '_Now I wonder why I'm here, is it fate?_' he thought for a moment before walking to the temple.

Darnell goes in and is astounded at the sight of the temple indoors, completely unchanged from two years ago unaware to Darnell but he didn't know that.

"Wow, looks historical." he says as he goes to one of the statues that stood a man with a rod, obviously dressed for the part.

"That statue of high summoner Braska is one of our most important idols of our time." A temple priest tells him as he walked up to him, he had never seen Darnell before in his life as he looked at the statue.

"And let me guess, Yuna's a-"

"High summoner also." the temple priest answered "We should be receiving a statue of Yuna soon." He sounded quite glad to be receiving that statue soon.

"Thanks." he says to him as he left the temple.

As he leaves the temple only Tidus and Wakka stand in the middle of town, they seem to be looking for him as Darnell came out of the temple.

"Hey kid, over here!" Wakka called out to him as the two approach, Darnell notices a ball in Tidus's hand.

"Have you played blitzball before?" Tidus asked him

"No I haven't, I don't even know what blitzball is." he answered bluntly and honestly.

Wakka looked dumbfounded at him as he tried to absorb it all, "How could you not know about blitzball?"

Darnell doesn't answer, instead he kept quiet not wanting to reveal his past at all.

Tidus's shock wore off fast as he shook it off with a smile, "How about we showed you blitzball?" Tidus offered

"Sure." was his answer as Tidus and Wakka take Darnell to the beach where the Besaid Aurochs were practicing.

Back at Besaid the Gullwings met up in the middle of town noticing that Tidus, Wakka and Darnell were no longer seen.

"Hey, where's Wakka?" Yuna asked her crew.

Rikku thinks for a moment before saying "Let's check the beach."

Paine looked at Yuna as Rikku lead the way there, "Yuna, when she grew a brain?"

Yuna chuckled a little "Don't underestimate Rikku Paine, she does have her moments."

By the time the girls get to the beach they see the Aurochs along with Wakka, Tidus and Darnell.

"They're they are." Paine points out as the guys are by the looks of the men they were explaining blitzball to the young man.

"There's six blitzball players on each team, each play a different position." Wakka explains

"Ok, I get that but what about the positions themselves?" he asks

"The positions are left field, right field, middle field, left defender, right defender and the goalkeeper of course." Tidus explains

Darnell nods in acknowledgment as Wakka shows me the team, "Me and Tidus will be playing the field positions ya? Letty is our midfielder, Jassu and Botta are our defenders and Keepa is our goalkeeper. Easy ya?" Wakka asks him.

"Looks like they're explaining blitzball to him." Yuna notices as the boys continue to talk to him.

"Kinda." he answered

"Can you swim?" Wakka asks

"I can, why?" he answered even though they have no idea that the girls are listening to them talking.

"Blitzball is played in water." Tidus tells him.

'_Oh now he tells me_' Darnell thought obviously he should have seen that coming but he didn't anyway.

"Let's get you out of that gear, so we can test you." Tidus instructs as he spins the blitzball on his finger waiting for him.

"Oh, You're on Tidus!" he declared as he takes out his sword, stuck it in the ground as then he takes off his trenchcoat as he runs directly at Tidus in his blue sleeveless vest as he goes play blitzball for the first time as the girls much to the boys obliviousness and watch.

End of Chapter 5


	7. Blitzball Practice

Chapter 6: Blitzball practice

"Tidus, you won't beat me!" he declared as he chases down Tidus into the water while the girls stand in anticipation while the boys play for a while.

"Who do you think will win?" Yuna asks the group looking at them as if she was going to wager Gil on the winner evidenced by the look on her face, Paine looked at Rikku who had a nervous look as her cousin and comrade placed 500 Gil into the wager.

"Tidus has the upper hand due to experience, no offense to your man Yuna but he is kinda scrawny." Paine chooses from what she knew of him, she didn't know a whole lot about him as she placed her Gil in the pot.

"I don't need to choose." Rikku says not getting involved in the bet, Rikku knew when it came to bets she was bad at it depending on her luck. Yuna shoots her a face trying to suck her into the bet.

"Rikku, cut the bullshit." Paine shot out obviously seeing that Rikku refused to participate in the bet.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Rikku asked bitter to Paine's question as she looked at her, anger was slowly starting to show in the young girl's eyes as Paine stood there not threatened by the look.

"You want Darnell to win don't you Rikku?" Yuna teasingly asked her cousin who at this point appeared to be losing to her anger in herself.

"No I don't!" Rikku protested back, Yuna was really pushing her buttons on the Al Bhed girl, to her and Paine's surprise she was pushing the right ones at the moment.

"I know two things, one I want Tidus to win and two, you do want Darnell to win so just admit it." Yuna points out but neither Paine or Yuna know that Rikku might be developing a crush on the boy.

"Yuna, I'm not saying anything!" Rikku yells but her face is red from the anger that Yuna and Paine are giving her, did she have a crush on Darnell? She wouldn't say, but she hoped her actions didn't show otherwise as her eyes went from Yuna to Darnell as he struggled to catch Tidus at the moment.

Yuna laughs at Rikku, Paine just looks at the competing men to focus her attention from the bickering cousins at the moment.

"Rikku, you like Darnell so why don't you just tell him?" Paine suggested to her

"Or show that you like him?" Yuna suggested also but in a teasing manner

"No way, but for beginners luck I hope he doesn't do bad." Rikku says as the girls pulls up chairs to watch the practice.

Darnell looks to see that Tidus has the blitzball at this point, he goes and challenges him to take the ball from him but he slips the tackle attempt like it was natural to him. Darnell showed a hint of anger of almost having the ball.

Yuna wasn't surprised as Darnell was when Tidus did the tackle slip, "Wow, he has to be hard to hit." Paine comments at Tidus's evasiveness

"At times." Yuna mentions due to Tidus's athleticism of blitzball cause he's known for his superior speed and agility.

Then Tidus passes the ball to Wakka, Darnell follows Wakka in order to intercept him from shooting into the goal.

Darnell can see the determination on the body language of Wakka, Darnell challenges Wakka and the result was Darnell stealing the ball out of the surprise of everyone after wrestling the ball from Wakka.

Paine, Rikku, Yuna and Tidus were impressed by Darnell stealing the ball.

"Wow, that was impressive." Paine comments on the play

"Beginner's luck." Yuna states knowing that Wakka is not quite in shape for blitzball since he was taking care of his son.

"Good job, Darnell." Rikku cheered for her new friend.

"Told you, you like him." Yuna teases Rikku which made her blush a bit.

"I told you already, I don't like him!" Rikku yells out now face redder than a tomato from the anger and the blush, now angry Rikku throws in 500 Gil into the spot surprising Yuna and Paine.

"Alright, I'm in so don't be surprised." Rikku said as the glares from the girls left her sight.

Yuna just laughs at Rikku's comment, "I'll deal with you later." Rikku remarks bitterly to her cousin.

As Darnell stole the ball from Wakka he was about to score on the practice goal, one person is in the way of the goal.

Tidus challenged him obviously in the way, instead of the nice cheerful Tidus he knows, he sees a competitive more aggressive Tidus.

Tidus goes and attacks him for the blitzball in a chokehold, but somehow manages to hang on to the ball as Tidus attempted several grabs and shoots it towards Keepa feeling lightheaded but he couldn't catch the ball in time resulting in a goal.

The girls each cheer to the goal that Darnell made for the first time.

"Nice job." Paine greeted

"Well done." Rikku cheered on

"He's good." Yuna says noticing that he isn't no slouch at the game either as he seem to have adapted being in water.

After a few hours of blitzball playing the boys get out of the water and the girls were impressed by Darnell's play not to mention it was his first time.

"Darnell, that was impressive." Yuna says in amazement as she high-fives both Darnell and Tidus.

"For a first time kid, you're a good player." Tidus confirms, he was surprised that this kid who had never heard of blitzball, never even played before he somehow manages to do very well against them both which proved to be a challenge to him.

Darnell indeed was panting and coughing up some water much to everyone's surprise, during that match Darnell must have inhaled some water during Tidus's chokehold as he helped him get what's left out.

"Hope you didn't lose a lung." Tidus says in a joking manner

"I didn't, thanks to your chokehold that nearly drowned me." Darnell reliated

"I'll have your evaluation tomorrow." Wakka informed him, Darnell looks at him obviously confused.

"All right, thanks." he accepts obviously not knowing what the evaluation is.

"You were decent." Paine commented as she pats him on the back which earned a grunt from him.

"Yeah, awesome job." Rikku cheerfully expressed to him

"Thanks, Rikku." he accepted but for the first time there is a blush on his face either from the water or an actual blush

Rikku cheerfully giggles at Darnell as if he did something right, the two are unaware that the boys are talking amongst themselves out of earshot.

"It's nearly night, why don't we tell Lulu were staying?" Yuna suggests as she and Paine are about to leave the beach.

"We'll see you in Besaid." Rikku says as she waves to him as the girls go to Besaid.

Suddenly Wakka and Tidus start laughing once the girls are out of earshot, right now Darnell is confused at why they're laughing.

"Why you guys laughing?" he asked them

"Dude, you don't see it?" Tidus asked

"See what?"

"Wakka, he doesn't see it." Tidus says as he looks at Darnell's confused face..

"Tell me or I'm going to force you to tell me!" he demands, he wasn't enjoying this joke anymore as he went from confused to anger.

"Ok kid, Rikku likes you." Tidus tells him, Darnell doesn't believe him.

"What makes you think I believe that?" he asks due to the guys tendency to joke around at times and this time was no different.

"Simple kid, at times she'll blush, or hang around you or she'll wave that's how we know she likes you." Wakka explains to him obviously Darnell doesn't know if it's true.

"Thanks for pointing that out." he says in a sarcastic manner.

"Yo kid, I think I can help you land Rikku." Wakka says in an attempt to make him angry to which he did.

"I don't need your help Wakka, I'll do things by myself." he declared, sure he was getting rather annoyed with Wakka's antics.

"See you tomorrow for your evaluation." Wakka reminded him.

"Sure thing." he says as he goes to get his equipment not looking at Wakka at all.

"May I suggest you take off that vest so it can dry?" Tidus suggested

He catches on quickly to what Tidus was trying to do, he was planning to get Rikku to confess by having him wear his trenchcoat half-naked.

"Tidus, there's no way in hell that'll happen." he declared coldly as he puts on his trenchcoat and then he carries his sword in his left hand on the way to the village.

"I'll see you guys later." he says as he leaves towards Besaid

As he walks toward the outskirts of Besaid he sees someone leaving, since it was night now he couldn't make out who it was but he had to warn the person about the fiends being around at night.

But as he got closer, it sounds like the person was swearing up a storm sounding really upset.

"Who the Fuck she is? Taunting me about my personal interests like that, when she last expects it I'll beat her to a pulp!" The female screamed in rage, Darnell approaches her not thinking what will happen to him or her at the moment.

"Hey, there's fiends around at night so why don't you turn back?" he says in a kind calm manner obviously hiding his rage inside him.

"After the way my cousin teased me, there's no way in hell I'm going back there!" The girl expresses in an angry manner to him.

"What happened?" he asks even though he didn't want to know he thought that talking to the girl would calm her down but it doesn't seem to be working at the moment.

"After I left the beach-"

"The beach?" Then it suddenly clicked in my mind who he was talking to as she came into the moonlight.

The girl that was real upset was Rikku as she came under the moonlight.

"Rikku is everything all right?" he asked her as they both see one another.

"Darnell, is that you?" Rikku asked obviously coming closer to him.

Rikku looked like she was crying earlier, her face red from the tear stains and anger itself but mostly anger as Darnell looked at her face.

"Everything isn't all right, I'm just upset right now." Rikku tells him, Darnell's anger that he was hiding somehow manages to fade away seeing Rikku distraught like this.

"What's wrong?" he asks her.

"Yuna and Paine are pissed me off today with the constant teasing I managed to drive my point a bit but to them it's like my words had some effect on them." She answered with mixed emotions in her voice

"I know, I just went through a tease section with Tidus and Wakka." he tells her "I bet they realized they went too far."

"Let me guess, they-"

"Teased me as well I thought I had to beat some sense into both of them." he finished

Darnell and Rikku both laughed at what had transpired tonight, "I nearly cried when they didn't let up." Rikku adds but there on Rikku's emerald green eyes she was on the verge of tears.

"I know, just breathe Rikku." he instructs as he wipes the almost trail of tears from her beautiful emerald green eyes.

Rikku sniffled a bit, "Thanks Darnell." She says "You're a sweet person."

"I know, I hide it at times." he says in a honest manner

"Why?"

"I try to keep my emotions in control." was his answer, Rikku looks up at him in his brown eyes.

"I think you got good at that." Rikku tells him, now that Darnell doesn't believe.

"I don't think so, if I get angry my anger will take over remember what happened at Gagazet?" he asked her referring to the day that they met, it seems he doubted his own abilities at times, Rikku gives him a assuring smile. "You are good at that, just believe in yourself." Darnell nods at the girl's advice.

Rikku remembered what had transpired at the mountain not long ago, "I know, but who is that guy you kept talking about?"

"You mean 'him'?" he asked but said 'him' in a angry manner

"Yeah, did this guy do something bad?"

"Did horrible things since he snapped." he answered obviously doesn't want to explain that story.

"What things?" Rikku asks in curiosity

"Rikku, I'm sorry but that's personal."

"Oh come on, please tell me." Rikku complained to him.

"I can't afford anyone to get involved Rikku." he confirmed, to Rikku he is hiding something from her but she wants to know what it is and wants to know now.

"Why not?" Rikku asks but she is a bit disappointed in her voice, now she was getting impatient.

Darnell looks away from Rikku, Rikku does not know the pain that he was hiding from her.

"Something wrong?" Rikku asks noticing that he wasn't looking at her, like he was trying to hide something from her but to him he's protecting her.

"No, nothing." he quickly says knowing he's lying to her but he doesn't look to her

"You're hiding something." Rikku suspected him.

Darnell turns to look at her, to assure her he tells her "I'm not hiding anything."

"Okay, can we go back to Besaid now?" Rikku asked him, obviously not wanting to be outside anymore and tired of trying to get Darnell to tell what's on his mind.

"Sure." was his answer as they walk to Besaid, but Darnell and Rikku have no idea that Tidus and Wakka "I knew it." Tidus exclaimed

"What did you know?" Wakka asked him.

"Yeah, I think those two are in love." Tidus says observing the two leave.

"No, I think this was just a chat outside after something happened." Wakka answered obviously not wanting to provoke either one as it was getting late out.

"Ok brudda, let's go home." Wakka ordered

"Don't have to tell me twice." Tidus confirmed as everyone goes to the town to sleep for the night.

End of chapter 6


	8. Chapter 7

Chapter 7: remembering the past and Wakka's evaluation

**A/N:Long chapter! Cookies to whoever reviews and reads it!**

When mourning broke over Besaid Island, it was supposed to be a regular day for people that is unless your a blitzball captain or a first-time player of the game and was told you're good at this game.

For Wakka, he was supposed to have Darnell's evaluation of him today however as Wakka was getting ready to start the day most people didn't know someone else was already up.

The gullwings have woken up along with Wakka and Tidus, but they don't know Darnell was nowhere to be found.

"Mourning guys." Rikku greeted happily to everyone, most of the village was already asleep still in the morning.

"Hey, slept well?" Tidus asks the girl.

"Of course." Rikku answered.

"I know why." Paine teasingly says to Rikku causing Rikku's attention to shift to her.

"Paine, shut the hell up." Rikku yells but not loud enough for everyone to hear while her face started to change to a light pink.

"You talked to him last night didn't you? After our argument?" Yuna asked since everyone was curious to know if she talked to Darnell or not, all eyes were on Rikku now.

"That's none of your business Yuna!" Rikku snapped at Yuna, now Rikku's face turns red as if she was blushing or she was losing her cool.

"It is my business cause I'm your damn cousin and I'm seeing if you're hiding anything like you having a crush on him." Yuna retaliates back at her.

"Alright you two, break it up." Paine ordered as she takes Rikku back while Tidus separates Yuna to prevent them from trying to destroy one another out of the blue.

"Calm down both of you, the last thing I need is fighting right now." Tidus explained "Now that's settled, I'm getting Darnell so we can settle this." Tidus says as he goes to the Crusaders lodge to find him, as Tidus checked the lodge for Darnell, he looks around and sees that Darnell is nowhere in the lodge, just the blitzball team the Aurochs were in there.

"Guys, have you seen Darnell?" Tidus asked

"No." Letty answered, the Aurochs were in fact sleeping in the cabin while a tent was being built for them so they can have their own place while the Lodge will be used for guests visiting Besaid.

"Thanks." Tidus says as he left the lodge

"Anything?" Yuna asked him as he came sprinting back

"He's not there, apparently he left at dawn." Tidus answered

When this was said each reaction was different, Paine had a confused look on her face, Yuna wasn't happy but Rikku was shocked to find out that Darnell left at dawn from the lodge!

"He's probably at the beach." Yuna says in a guessing manner

"Let's check there." Tidus confirmed as they run to the beach to find Darnell.

Meanwhile at the beach...

Darnell was walking along the entrance till he seen the cliffs of Besaid Island, as he climbed towards the top he looked to see if anyone was coming towards the cliff to which to his relief that no one has coming.

'Good, no one's up yet.' he thought to myself as he reached the top seeing the sun's rays hit the water making it sparkle with life.

Once at the top, Darnell pulled out his sword and examined it, it had been in good shape but obviously the battles were starting to get on the sword, he sticks it in the ground but he didn't count on was some of his past popping up when it happened..

The first memory was meeting his idol and best friend Luke during a mission in the cold mountains a few years back.

_Flashback 4 years ago...(Darnell's POV)_

"_Here's the plan, we have to get inside without alerting the guards." Luke says, he at this point was a second-class warrior being considered being promoted to first-class by his uniform color being a dark purple._

"_Easier said than done." I say, back then I was a third-class warrior with a helmet and other sorts of gear._

"_Yeah and if there wasn't much to see here then-"_

"_There's not much out there either." I and Luke say simultaneously_

_Me and him share a good laugh waiting for the others to catch on up, 'Man, talk about slow.' I thought seeing the others struggle to keep up._

"_So then, what's your name?" Luke asked_

_I take off my helmet and say, "It's Darnell, and you?"_

"_Luke." he introduced as we shook hands for the first time._

_Later we met again after Luke's promotion to first-class warrior but I was unaware that his mentor died in battle saving him._

"_Yeah, I just came from this mission and-" Luke was talking to an operative until we met coming from different directions._

"_Well Darnell we meet again!" Luke expresses as we see one another "Looks like we're going to the same place, new mission assignment."_

"_Thanks for informing me, hold on I'll get everyone." I say as I get the rest of the second-class warriors thanks to me moving up the ranks, I felt so happy to move up to the ranks and seeing Luke at the elite at such a short amount of time was incredible to me._

_Once we gathered everyone we had to investigate an old factory that was possibly being used for experimentation, however it was rumored that it was used for experimentation but we had to go to see if it was true._

_Luke and I managed to get in but Jose was rumored to be here since his insanity so we had to keep our guard up, as we were almost done wrapping up investigating finding nothing. Jose came out of nowhere and attacked us._

_Luke and Jose fought each other and I could see why each of them were first rank as I was knocked away by Luke so he could fight him alone. Later Jose pushed Luke down the stairs causing him to drop his sword at this point hearing his body smack the floor with a thud, I grabbed Luke's sword and charged at Jose but I never knew that was a stupid idea, Jose mostly was winning the fight until he knocked me and the sword out._

_Jose then impales me past my armor as if it was paper to him, "How's the pain, kid?" he asks devilishly and cocky._

"_I'm not giving up." I declare in pain as I grab his sword to throw him and it to a wall and then he disappeared underneath the rumble._

_Due to injury I fall down the stairs like Luke earlier, somehow we are still alive as I hear my own body fall next to him._

"_Darnell, you did it." Luke tells me as we smile for accomplishing the mission._

"_I know,didn't give up." I say as me and Luke fell into unconsciousness due to our injuries_

_Then a lot of things were a blur, then I remembered Luke's conservation to me when I wouldn't wake up due to the experiment effect, then I was put behind some rock while Luke went into this bright light like the same one that took me here._

_'I wonder if that bright light was either fate or the spirit of Luke that made it happen.' I wondered in thought._

_End flashback..._

"Darnell? Where are you?" Rikku yelled out hoping for a response from him

No response from Darnell at all even through he is there.

"I know he's here." Yuna says saying as if she knows he's there

"He can't hide here forever." Paine adds saying if he is hiding.

"Split up, we'll find him." Tidus orders as Yuna takes the north part of the beach, Paine takes the south path, Rikku climbs on the other cliff on the Island while Tidus looked in the water.

Darnell looked around with interest while sitting while the Gullwings were looking for him, with each path blocked there was only a limited amount of time before they would find him sitting on the other side with my sword in the ground.

"You can't hide for long." Rikku declared

Darnell looks over with a smile struggling to keep his excitement in, he looks away as they look for him so he relaxes.

Tidus emerges from the water, "Found him?" Yuna asked

"No, I'll look more." Tidus answered before heading underwater once again assuming he either was practicing holding his breath or somehow having been washed away by the current.

Yuna climbed to another cliff across from mine, she spots Rikku and asks "Nothing?"

"Nope. Nothing so far." Rikku answered

He cracked a small smile and a snicker, "Isn't there one more cliff?" Rikku asked

"Yeah, across from this one." Yuna answered

The girls each look over to that cliff and see an astounding sight, they see Darnell looking out at the horizon early in the mourning, sword stuck in ground and he was obviously not looking towards them.

"Tidus, Paine we found him." Rikku says out loud

"Tidus, out the water." Yuna called

As Paine and Tidus reemerged and the group got back together they each stood behind him, Rikku on the other hand Darnell has no idea she was worried and a little mad.

"Darnell, give me one reason why I ought to beat you senseless!" Rikku says to him in an worried but upset tone, he didn't know that he shouldn't want to mess with an angry girl let alone Rikku when she's angry.

"I see you found me." he simply says to everyone behind him.

"How the hell did you get up before us?" Yuna asked still perplexed on how he was here the whole time.

"I couldn't sleep." he answered Yuna's question

"You will after-" Rikku was about to protest till Paine cuts her off with a wave of her hand stopping the young girl.

"What were you doing out here?" Paine asks out of curiosity

"I had a rough night, I was looking for somewhere I can think." he answered Paine as he stands up and faced the Gullwings.

"Did something happen?" Rikku asks, she calmed down a little seeing his face had some sadness to it, like he had remembered something horrible as Rikku overreacted.

"You could say that." he answered.

"Well what happened?" Tidus asked out of curiosity and wanting him to talk.

"Him." was all he could say without getting frustrated.

"Who this 'Him' you speak of?" Tidus wondered, that was on every Gullwings mind right now.

Darnell turned from the group, not wanting to speak of it since it hurt him inside.

"You're going to have to tell us sooner or later." Paine says

"Might as well be now!" Rikku demanded, she wanted to know everything that was going on.

"I don't want to involve you guys." he says in a soft manner

Yuna thought for a moment, then she steps up and speaks to him which only surprised Darnell..

"How about this? You tell us and we won't get involved but if something much bigger, we'll help." Yuna suggests

Darnell thinks about it for a moment, then he turns around towards the group again with his answer.

"I accept." he accepted but didn't sound too happy.

"All right then, tell us." Paine says keeping her calm demeanor.

"The 'Him' I keep saying, his real name is Jose." he explained.

"Why not mention his name then?" Rikku asked

"I'm getting to that." Darnell answered "Everyone used to idolize him because he was a excellent swordsman, an elite since he first joined."

"Like a role model." Paine says in an understanding way

"Exactly, then one day me and Luke was at a town investigating a plant that was possibly had been used for other purposes then Jose shows up after burning a town previously when Luke went there."

The Gullwings were in complete shock when this was said, especially Rikku.

"Why did he do that?" Yuna asked not believing what she heard in shock.

"He found out something from some really old documents and he went insane, at least that's what I heard." he answered

"At the reactor on the outskirts of the town, me and Luke investigated and after we were done Jose appeared out of nowhere and attacked both of us."

That bastard!" Rikku expresses

I crack a smile when Rikku reacted, "Luke and Jose fought keeping me out of it for a while, I seen why each of them were elite warriors until Luke was pushed out of the doorway making him fall down some stairs, with him out of the way he attacked me."

The Gullwings were shocked at this part, "Knowing that I never fought him before, I ran over to Luke's sword and I wound up fighting him, we fought over a while until he knocked me down along with the sword then he impaled me with his long sword."

Everyone was speechless when I told them this, Rikku was no exception.

"Were you okay?" Rikku asked me

"It hurt like hell, but I was alive at that time." Darnell answered and explained "He had every intention to kill both of us even though we are warriors, I managed to stop him by picking up the sword along with him and threw him into a wall down to a reactor, with both of us too injured to move Luke congratulated me before me and him went into unconsciousness."

"Wow, sounds like your mission was hell." Tidus commented hearing his story.

"It was indeed." he said. "The rest of it was a blur, I heard it's been four years since that day, Luke's conservation with me on a truck then Luke went into this bright light."

"What happened to Luke?" Yuna asked

Darnell turns away from the group because I couldn't finish the story, "It was that bad?" Rikku asked in concern

All he could do was nod at the question, everyone was silent.

"Can you finish?" Tidus asked

"I'll try." was his answer, then Darnell gathers a deep breath and finished the story "Then after this bright light disappeared, I went to see what happened to Luke but I didn't expect what I saw when I climbed to the top of the cliff."

"What did you see?" Yuna asked

"I saw Luke, he was... dying. Out in the storm." he managed to say, Darnell wasn't happy to say it.

"What happened to him?" Paine asked

"It turns out that an warrior army was assigned to look for both of us, the same company to which Luke worked at betrayed us or so he thought. Luke fought for both of our freedoms and he paid the price for it."

"So-"

"He's dead, but I remembered his last words." he says in a crestfallen tone.

"What were they?" Yuna asked

"Live for the both of us. You're my protege... my honor...is yours now._" _Darnell quoted Luke's last words. "Then he gave me the sword I'm using still."

"So that's why the sword is important to you." Rikku realized along with the Gullwings as they all nodded.

"Then he told me to say that he became a hero, and to tell a girl he met named Daisy hi." he continued telling his story.

Rikku felt so bad for what he went through before Darnell even met the Gullwings, she could see why he didn't talk to her about his past at Besaid last night.

"So then, Daisy was his first love?" Paine asked in curiosity.

"Yeah." he answered "And my friend."

"What became of her?" Rikku asked hoping there was some good to it but the group would never expect what he would say next.

"Jose killed her too, after I fought him and got knocked out cold." he said. Everyone looked in awe and shock at the result. "Then at an ghost town I managed to chase Jose down, then we fought there, even through I was severely injured by Jose, I managed to kill him." he says, it was the only time he smiled there at the story. _"Or so I thought." he thought in the back of his head._

"So you avenged your friends deaths, what did you do next?" Paine asked

"I became a mercenary for a while." he answered "Then I got word about an old reactor possibly being used again, I went to look but I didn't know that was a trap."

"How?" Rikku asked while trying to hold in her concern.

"Jose somehow shows up and attacks me knowing that I defeated him at the town, he activated the reactor while I tried to fight him off and shut it down, but it blew causing me and possibly him to awake in Spira." he concluded.

"So you're trying to find him to kill him?" Paine asked

"Yeah, I don't know where he is and what he is up to but I'll be the one to put an end to it." Darnell say in confidence as the fire in his eyes returned.

"That's your battle to fight, we'll support you." Rikku offered

"And I accept." Darnell took the offer

"Wakka's coming soon, we should get ready." Tidus points out

"All right then." he said.

Yuna and Paine wait at the beach down from the cliffs, the only ones on the cliff were Darnell and Rikku due to Tidus warming up playing blitzball.

"I see why you didn't tell me what's on your mind last night." Rikku realized taking in the story.

"I don't want anyone I care a lot about to die by his hand." he says to the girl, not wanting her to fight him. He blushed realizing he cared for Rikku, '_When that happen? If I care for her, I'll have to protect her.' _Darnell thought.

"But I do know this, you'll take care of him I'm sure of it." Rikku assures not even seeing his blushing face.

"Confident I see." he says.

"Nope, just I believe you can beat him." Rikku answered

Then something he never expect from Rikku, she hugs him right on the chest.

He's in total shock due to Rikku's actions, but he hugs her right back and tell her, "I hope you're right."

Then Rikku felt something wet hitting her face, turns out Darnell was crying, due to his friends deaths especially his idol and mentor Luke, it was then she realized that Darnell failed to protect his two best friends; a burden that he had carried for such a long time that she didn't want to see him like this like a broken young man.

"Darnell, don't cry." Rikku pleads in a soft whisper, now understanding the pain he's endured before they met.

"I know, but I felt helpless for Luke and my friend Daisy." he says, breathing heavily as he's trying to calm down. "I lost my former friend in Jose, am I destined to lose my friends?"

Then he feels Rikku's warm, soft hands wiping the tears off his face. "Thanks." he tells Rikku, his cheeks were not only tear-stained but the tear-stains were hiding his blush.

"You would have done the same." Rikku commented

No later than their first hug, Darnell turns and sees Yuna and Paine talking amongst each other

"I knew it! They do like each other!" Yuna says to Paine in a low whisper

"I think that's a pity hug, but she do likes him though." Paine says in total assurance of herself.

"We'll tell Tidus later." Yuna confirmed as the girls leave toward Besaid.

Rikku and I break the embrace before Wakka shows up.

"Sorry I'm late, Lu kept me a little longer." Wakka apologizes as he's running towards them.

"It's no problem." he says.

"Where's Tidus?" Wakka asks

"Right here." Tidus says as he practiced the blitzball then he puts it down.

"All right, here's my evaluation from the practice." Wakka says

"I took in account of using your warrior strength, without the sword you're pretty balanced when it comes to blitzball." Wakka explained "Offensively, you're good but defensively you're really good there also."

"Even I helped." Tidus added "Good thing we were both playing against you."

"Ok." he says to the blitzball captains.

"So after considering with the team and along Tidus, Darnell you made the team." Wakka confirms in total assurance of his decision.

Rikku cheers at the wonderful news as Darnell only smiled again, again Rikku hugs him and he decides to spin her around.

"Thanks Wakka." he accepts at this news

"It's no problem, it works out." Wakka says

"It does." he says as he puts Rikku down after the sudden hug.

"Do I need to know about you two?" Wakka asked wondering if he walked into something between the two.

"No Wakka, we're fine." he answered with a slight blush on his face.

"Tomorrow's the first practice, the crystal cup tournament is in two weeks so stay sharp ya?" Wakka informed his new teammate

"Sure." he says as we get ready for practice tomorrow.

Unaware to most of them, Jose and the shadows were planning something big right underneath them.

At the undisclosed location...

Time 3:50 pm.

"So Shadow King, what do you want?" Jose asks the king.

"To get out of here, we've been locked away for years." The king confirmed

"And how do we do that?" Jose asks looking at him

"Simple, I think we need to make a hole up on the ceiling." Shadow King theorized

"If I can unleash my stored strength, it'll crumble." Jose theorized sounding positive about it.

"I can help you with that, I'll send my weakest shadows to attack you and your strength should be ready."

"All right." Jose says

The Shadow King began the attack on Jose with only ten weaker shadows to put him at the edge once summoned.

"Freedom will be at hand." Jose ensured as he got into battle stance.

End of chapter 7


	9. First blitzball practice and an warning

Chapter 8: first blitzball practice and an warning to the Gullwings

Since the news that Darnell had made the Besaid Aurochs team, the tide started to turn for the Aurochs and Wakka.

Today would mark the first practice for Darnell, since the Aurochs were an good team to most people but others felt like they were missing a piece to make them great but due to Wakka's confidence they hoped that Darnell was the last piece of the puzzle.

With most people getting up, especially the Gullwings due to the first practice.

The Gullwings met at the gate of Besaid before heading to the beach, each of them filled with anticipation for the practice.

"Hey guys, ready for the practice?" Tidus asked everyone, unfortunately he can't seem to sit still waiting for the practice to even start.

"Yep." Yuna answered

"You bet." Paine included in her talk, not the one to get excited over practice she had some attention on her.

"Always ready." Rikku chipped in "Where's Darnell?"

"He must have left for the beach already, he wasn't in the cabin." Tidus confirmed, Yuna wasn't surprised at this news.

"No surprise there." Rikku says "If the team wasn't there then that means he must be at the beach."

Yuna whispers in Tidus's ear what she saw yesterday between Darnell and Rikku, the results was Tidus humming a teasing tone moments later.

"What's with the humming?" Rikku asked in curiosity.

"Nothing." Yuna says covering up as Tidus continued to hum when they're walking the path to the beach.

After a few minutes of Tidus's humming Rikku is starting to get annoyed by it, "Okay, that's going to get annoying." Rikku pointed out as she stopped walking for a moment "Tidus, why you humming anyway?"

"No reason." Tidus lied to her, normally he was poor at lying but it seems he had improved at lying and this had surprised Yuna when he sounded like he was telling the truth.

Paine was trying so hard not to crack up due to Tidus's game of teasing Rikku, but of course she knew what transpired between the two.

"Damn it, why won't someone tell me what's going on with him?" Rikku protested, now impatient after a few minutes of Tidus's humming as they're halfway there to the beach.

Suddenly Paine snickered a bit, Tidus and Yuna struggle trying to hold in their laughter while stopping humming at last.

"What's funny?" Rikku demanded now no longer playing around.

Everyone but Rikku burst with laughter, "Rikku, we saw it." Yuna answered

"Huh?" Rikku said with confusion

"Rikku, me and Yuna saw you and Darnell hugging on top of the cliff." Paine explained

Suddenly Rikku's face goes from irritated to now shock and anger.

"I didn't want any of you to see that!" Rikku expressed angrily, now staring at her friends with now rage as if she was going to snap at any moment.

"Darnell and Rikku sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g." Tidus teases Rikku

"It's not like that!" Rikku yelled

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby carriage!" Tidus and Yuna both tease Rikku then laughs.

Then Rikku snaps. "That's it, I'll clean you guys!" Rikku declared as she chases Tidus and Yuna down,

Tidus and Yuna run from an really pissed off Rikku, Rikku however had the intent of beating the shit outta her own cousin and her friend rather they like it or not.

Paine just watches while the chase continued down the beach, "Don't kill them yet." Paine says as she runs after the group not wanting to miss this but also hold the group from imploding on one another.

As Rikku ran after Yuna and Tidus like a heat-seeking missile, with Paine trying to keep up with them was another thing for her to do to prevent something as childish as this from sending Rikku over the edge.

"Guys, this isn't necessary." Paine tried to plead with Rikku.

The words that Paine spoke seem to fall on deaf ears on Rikku's part, Tidus and Yuna somehow heard what Paine had said and they seem to be considering apologizing to her.

Tidus whispered something to Yuna, as Yuna goes on Tidus eventually stopped running and turned to face Rikku who was currently charging at him at full speed with only one thing on her mind, getting to her cousin and beating her to a pulp if need be.

"Rikku, stop!" Tidus ordered Rikku to hold in her anger as if that would work.

"Why should I?" Rikku asked the blonde blitzer now approaching him faster now while Yuna ran up ahead, Tidus didn't waver from his spot.

"Because me and Yuna were just having fun, we didn't mean to offend you in any way." Tidus explains

"Like I believe that." Rikku denied not wanting to hear him.

"Cause it's the truth." Yuna says running back to her trying to get Rikku to at least relax a little.

"What really?" Rikku asks, she was near Tidus by about a few inches ready to beat the mess outta him first then she'll move for Yuna but when this was said she stopped from wailing on Tidus completely.

"Rikku, you should relax a bit more." Tidus suggested now smiling as if the fight didn't happen.

"Yep, you seem tense." Yuna noticed as she looked at her, Rikku was normally merry and energetic but lately she was stiff as a board. Maybe she was copying Darnell's walk at first Yuna sure didn't know what the cause was.

"Maybe we'll go back towards the Hot Springs in Gagazet." When this was said, Rikku blushed pink on her cheeks. "If you're trying to get me in the springs with him, it's not happening." Rikku says in defense to Yuna's suggestion.

"We're not trying." Yuna says possibly implying that she has a crush on the boy but neither of them knew at this point.

"At the rate we're going, I might be late." Tidus says as he runs to the beach taking Yuna's hand and running with her.

"You're not beating us there!" Rikku points out as her and Paine run to the beach to see the Aurochs practice as if it was a race to get there first.

By the time they get there they see the team is practicing hard, they spot Darnell headbutting a blitzball beside him is Wakka helping him out.

"Hey Wakka." Yuna greeted once freed from Tidus's grip "How's practice?"

"Going well ya, the team is coming together since Darnell made the team." Wakka says in his thick accent in confidence.

"At this rate, you guys might win the crystal cup." Rikku theorized hoping not to get the team's hopes up.

"Hope you're right." Tidus says as he go practices with the team kicking up a blitzball practicing his shots

"We'll watch from here." Yuna points out as they each stand a bit further from the team's practice.

Several hours later the practice was over, "Alright team, get a good night's rest and see you in the afternoon." Wakka instructs as the team leaves the beach past the girls as the sun appeared to set.

"Whew, practice was intense." Darnell says, still out of breath from the practice walking with Tidus to the girls.

"Now Darnell, what's our goal?" Tidus asks the warrior to see if he remembers the goals for the team.

"Victory!" Darnell and Tidus say then laugh about it as the two high-five each other, it seemed like the two had become best friends already which surprised Yuna and Rikku but they were happy about it regardless of how it started.

"The guys are sure enjoying themselves ya?" Wakka asked walking over to the group.

Everyone nodded.

"Like the practice?" Rikku asked Darnell as he walked up to the group still catching his breath but having some of it as he looked at her, he noticed the eventual sunset made Rikku stand out a bit more in his eyes as the brief image of her in the sunset made him blush but Rikku doesn't notice it.

"Yeah, intense." Darnell answered, he's in his blue sleeveless vest, one-sleeve trenchcoat and sword were in their own place on a rock as he walked over and retrieved his stuff.

"But fun also." he added with a small smile on his face.

"I'll be heading back to the town, catch you guys later." Wakka informed as he leaves the beach.

But soon after that the Gullwings are unaware that fate had something else for them.

_At the undisclosed location..._

_Time: 8:00 pm_

"_How's your limit Jose?" Shadow King asked_

"_Near ready." Jose answered as one shadow attacked him, obviously now he was already felt drained of most of his energy, but focused what he had left for the eye-opener as his sword felt a bit heavy in his hands even though it was clearly designed to be light and agile but starting to feel as if he lifted that sword a little too much._

"_Now's it's time." Jose declared evilly as this darkish-purple energy surrounded him. This power is what made the shadows look on in awe, it formed around him like a cloak as one part of the energy made a wing that was made of pure darkness. He knew he could control this power with ease as he grinned his trademark evil grin seeing the shadows frozen in fear._

"_The powers of Ruin will spread." Jose says as he slashes the air itself making a gigantic fireball similar to a super nova and the__result_ _was the seal on the top being destroyed as the hole itself was there._

"_There's your exit." Jose says simply as the energy that surrounded him went away._

"_And yours too, come on shadows we're leaving." Shadow King declared as he leads the shadows out along with Jose._

_Back to the Gullwings..._

A big disturbance that rocked Spira can be felt from Besaid to everywhere in Spira, even the Gullwings felt it as the disturbance felt like the whole earth was shaken to it's core.

"What's going on?" Yuna wondered as the shaking continued for a few seconds more.

"I have no idea, but something big must have happened." Darnell theorized in power as the disturbance reminded him of an image, the image was none other than Jose in this strange energy that surrounded him as he remembered that day. The day where he barely defeated him but left him wounded gravely. '_That power...It can't be, Jose?' _Darnell wondered as the shaking slowly came to a stop.

"It must be pretty big to rock all of Spira like that." Rikku points out as the disturbance makes her fall on her ass.

Darnell helps Rikku to her feet, "I never expected that kind of power." He says, hoping no one may have noticed this but he sounded like something had knocked him off his center.

"I know, let's head to the ship." Yuna says as they go to the airship.

Up at the airship everybody felt the disturbance, Shinra is currently analyzing the situation as the alarm is ringing like a telephone with incoming calls.

"Anything?" Yuna asked Buddy

"No, the radar's having a hard time picking it up." Buddy explained to her, even though he sounded smart this problem was probably out of his reach.

As everyone tried to figure out what happened the fayth appeared in front of the Gullwings, no one expected anything from the fayth as if the fayth was in the room the whole time but no one paid attention.

"It's you." Tidus says looking at the fayth as now the full attention was on the fayth.

"Fayth, what are you doing here?" Yuna asked

"I came to warn you of a new evil." the fayth answered "It looks like they escaped, and after so many years."

"What did escape anyway?" Darnell asked observantly, naturally he was trying to keep himself composed.

"The shadows." the fayth answered as everyone's faces were blank. "The shadows were once sealed up about 400 years ago, somehow they're released."

"400 years ago?" Paine repeated in shock of how long they were sealed.

"Who could have freed them?" Rikku asked

"I'll show you." the fayth says as he opens up a small time window of what happened earlier today...

"_How's the limit?" Shadow King asked_

"_About to break." Jose declared "The powers of Ruin will spread." as he makes a super nova destroying the ceiling that indeed was the seal._

The fayth then closes the window, "I believe one of you knows him well." he said as Yuna looked at Darnell causing the attention to shift to him.

"So Darnell, you know him?" Buddy asked

"I do, that's Jose on the left." he explains to everyone that didn't know him.

Jose had long black hair, medium-skin and his long sword with him, not a surprise he's a bit buff but had long arms and legs making him at least 6 feet tall.

"Apparently, he's the one that freed the shadows." the fayth confirmed

"What are these shadows anyway?" Yuna asked, never heard of them before she had to ask.

"Evil that has been locked away for years, with them free Spira is in danger." the fayth explains urgently.

"Like danger when we had Sin?" Rikku asked in curiosity.

"Yep." the fayth answered "The Shadow King appears to be the leader of the shadows, Jose looks like to be second-in-command."

"Jose's mine." Darnell declared as then everyone looked at him in shock in why he made a rash decision like that.

"Why him?" Yuna asked

"Because he's my target." Darnell explained "Also he's an elite swordsman."

"So it looks like we have ourselves a mission, we must defeat these shadows and save Spira once more." Yuna declared "Now who's in?"

Tidus, Rikku, Paine and Yuna each put their hands in the middle of their circle as Darnell seemed uncertain to join this mission

"Come on Darnell, join." Rikku pleads to him, Darnell seemed hesitant to do so.

Darnell puts his hand in along with the group, "I'll make sure no lives are taken by him." he says but he knew he had to keep himself together for the mission's sake and for everyone that accepted it including himself.

"Good, let's check around Spira first to see what's happened." Brother says as the Gullwings check for shadows throughout Spira.

End of chapter 8


	10. Shadow Seeking

Chapter 9: Shadow Seeking

With knowledge of the shadows escaping along with Darnell's target Jose due to the fayth, the gullwings decided it was time to seek out the shadows since they just escaped from their sealed prison.

"Now that these so called shadows are out, how do we reduce the numbers of every shadow we defeat in combat?" Yuna wondered opening the conservation to the others.

"I'm guessing when one is defeated." Darnell theorized sounding unsure of the theory he made, he appeared to have something else on his mind but only Yuna and Rikku notice this.

'_Something's wrong with him, but what? I want to know.' _Rikku thought to herself.

"But how many are there?" Rikku asked.

"Probably hundreds." Paine theorized in her regular tone but with a hint of worry.

"Thousands maybe." Tidus also throws in, the thought of thousands of shadows free to roam Spira didn't sound like a good invitation to anyone aboard at the moment.

"Maybe, but I'm not letting Spira be destroyed by shadows." Paine says in a aggressive manner.

"That's right." Darnell agreed with Paine, sometimes even he wondered how Paine and him became friends.

Suddenly the alarm starts ringing like crazy, "Is it a sphere?" Darnell asked since he can't tell the difference between a sphere alarm and a shadow alarm yet, at times he felt like as if he didn't belong here.

'_Other than Jose being here, I guess I don't have much purpose here.' _Darnell thought to himself disappointed feeling down and conflicted internally.

"No, it's a urgent call from Rin at the Thunder Plains and looks like we'll be heading there first." Buddy informs as Brother flies the ship towards the thunder plains.

Before the gullwings get there, Yuna goes and taps Darnell on the shoulder snapping him out of his thoughts and motions him outside the bridge to talk to him hoping to clear some things from his head as the two walk away. Rikku sees this and starts to feel jealousy towards this but she couldn't understand where the feeling was coming from as she stayed behind.

Once outside at the bridge Yuna looked at Darnell and he appeared to be stoic and calm as he can be but inside he felt as if someone knocked him off his center.

"Darnell, what's on your mind?" Yuna asked in a nice but yet worried tone, she could see the conflicted look in his eyes and this worried her so she thought something nice could ease him a bit.

"A lot." He answered, it seemed to her that Darnell was having a inner conflict with himself and upon Yuna seeing this she wanted to know but decides to go at it piece by piece.

"Like what? Care to talk about it?"

Darnell nodded. "It goes back."

"What does?" Now he had Yuna's full attention upon hearing this, Darnell found himself looking at her as he tried not to make eye contact.

"To me and Jose, We were childhood friends. We did a lot together." Now this Yuna couldn't believe what she was hearing but wanted to hear more. "Continue on."

"We were always challenging one another at times, when we were young men we decided to join being warriors for the company. Jose instantly became a high rank while I worked from behind his rank but we always made missions most of the time but as time progressed I met Luke who worked with Jose and I liked him right away resulting in me getting in more missions and ranking up as well, and that's where trouble started to brew."

"What kind of trouble?" Yuna asked him now starting to see where he was coming from, his story in her eyes was one of trials and triumph. Now she was going to hear what else happened.

"One mission we had to see what was going on to an power plant, knowing we have never been to this place before the three of us along with some infantrymen. Being toured around by a young woman she was very knowledgeable of the plant itself as we looked around finding some weird things, monsters in liquids I would never forget it." Darnell shuddered at the thought as Yuna listened, she felt her insides were somehow were starting to feel put back in place but were rearranged but she knew she had to hang on in order to listen to the story, she took a breath as Darnell continued.

"The next day after the tour me and Luke found out that Jose had locked himself into some room reading something extensively, he wouldn't even let us see him or help for that matter. While he was doing that Luke decided to teach me about sword fighting even though he knew I preferred range but he said it was vital to know, towards the end of the week we decided to check back at the cabins to find out that he left, knowing something was wrong we ran to the plant where it smelled like there was a fire recently there but it was gone. While Luke went on ahead to confront Jose I saw the tour girl down on the ground, I ran to her and I remembered who she was in an instant." Darnell stopped to catch in a good breath, Yuna looked and visualized what happened in the order she was told and she couldn't believe the burden Darnell was carrying, she wanted to hear more as she looked at him "Darnell...Who was she?" she asked now she felt off-center like he was earlier.

"The girl was my friend, Maria. She was just knocked out when I went to her, she thanked me for saving her. Once I saved her I hear the door open only to see Luke wounded falling down the stairs hard, he told me to defeat him which at the time seemed hard to do so I promised them both I will taking in Luke's sword and seeing him looking at something in a tube. I took and struck him as he fell on the ground wounded but that was a ruse, we fought and easily overpowered me and struck me in the chest. I reached in deep and removed his sword and threw him into the wall and down the plant it seemed like he was defeated as I came back to them and fell next to Luke smiling at her and telling Maria thank you before I passed out."

When Darnell was finished, Yuna felt nothing but emotions flowing through her, grief, sadness, anger, happiness and relief were in her as if her adrenaline was pumping all this out. She can only look at Darnell knowing the trials that he endured and understanding why he seemed distant and off-center, now she sees him as a strong young man who had to overcome the odds in order to save himself and his home before they met.

"Darnell, do you know about why he changed?" She mustered to say as if the words were stuck in her throat possibly realizing how much of a threat Jose is.

"I have some theories, either he snapped, went insane or some power took him over." Darnell theorized looking at her, now he felt a bit more secure and no longer waving inside feeling better.

"He said 'the powers of Ruin', maybe that's what changed him." Yuna said, Darnell looked at her with realization on his face. "It's obvious now." He said "The powers of Ruin changed him?" "We'll end that." He said now smiling for the first time in front of Yuna.

"Hey Darnell, one more question."

"Fire away."

"Do you like Rikku?"

"I do, but why?" he answered confused.

"Just wondering." she looked at him to see if he was hiding anything from her, unknowingly to her he was but he kept his composure as she finished studying him.

"**Okay we made land in the thunder plains, start investigating!" **Buddy notifies as the ship landed.

"Looks like our chat is over." Darnell said, Yuna only nods in agreement as they walk back to see everyone was waiting for them.

"Yeah, I'll be around if you need to talk." Yuna says as she walked to the group as they go down to see what's happening.

_**At the Thunder Plains...**_

The gullwings walk as their destination was the hotel that Rin owned as they continued hoping not to run into anything while they were here.

"So Darnell, what you and Yuna talked about?" Rikku asked him, he smiled a little knowing someone would ask since no one talked during the walk as the tension disappeared.

"Nothing." Darnell lied as they continued walking to the hotel, Rikku wasn't fooled.

"Nice try liar, so what was it about?" Rikku pointed this out, Tidus notices this and defends him.

"Rikku, he's telling the truth. Leave him be." Tidus says setting Rikku's curiosity down a notch, Rikku looked at Darnell as she couldn't shake that something was indeed different about him '_I wonder why Darnell seems so different now, one moment he looked conflicted and off-center and the next he's fine as if that didn't happen. He's a strong kid but I need to know what they talked about! Ugh, this is so frustrating!'_ Rikku thought trying to stay strong for the group and for herself as the jealousy feeling reared in Rikku's mind.

As the gullwings appear to the hotel they notice that the sign is off it's hinges, the door also and when they checked inside it wasn't better as the shelves were on the floor as it appeared to be a battle here. To everyone's horror Rin was found on the floor.

"Rin!" Yuna said in fear of what happened to one of her fellow Al Bhed's as she checked him only to find that he's shaken up and bruised but fine, Yuna gives him potion to which he looked normal when he finished with it. "Now what happened here?"

"It's horrible Lady Yuna, there's some mysterious figures that has appeared here." Rin explains as he shows the damage that was caused in the room as he stood up, it looked like it would take a while for everything to be put back where they used to be.

"The shadows." Rikku says realizing they have already been here.

"Along with a man with black hair was here, sword in hand. Not only that, the whole disturbance was a lot stronger here." Rin points out.

"Great, he was already here." Darnell said in a low voice keeping his rage in check though it wasn't easy, everyone looked at him as he was in mission mode which he was. If any of them said something out of line it looked like he would punch whoever said it.

"Meaning, the shadows were once sealed here." Yuna realized.

"So the biggest hit was here." Paine says realizing that the hardest impact was here.

"Ok, thanks for the info." Yuna says as they checked their equipment and looked outside while Rin stayed inside where it was safe.

"So, what's the plan?" Darnell asked.

"I thought you had a plan." Rikku says as she shoots him a confused look.

"Me too, aren't you a action person first then you think later?" Tidus asked him eying him a bit.

"I'm a little of both." he explained but that depended on the situation with him "But shouldn't the shadows be expecting us to hit them first?"

"Maybe, you have the sense to think things through." Paine comments at Darnell, he wondered if he even had the sense but it was better than being rash.

"I think we should hit them first." Tidus decided as the group checked the north section of the thunder plains, but as they do a shadow came out of nowhere as it appeared from thin air..

"A shadow!" Tidus exclaimed, the shadow appeared to be a female with some strange white energy around her and appears ready for a fight obviously in a fight stance.

"If it wants a fight, we'll give it one!" Rikku declared as everyone got their weapons ready to fight the shadow.

The shadow first strikes Darnell sending him back a bit, he counterattacks with using a fire spell doing little to the shadow. "I wonder if we're fighting a mage." Noting that his fire spell obviously didn't phase the shadow.

"My turn." Rikku declares as she strikes the shadow obviously the shadow didn't like that, then suddenly the shadow got into this strange position.

"What's this?" Paine wondered, suddenly the shadow shoots some of the white energy towards the group drawing them in and then a dark-purple explosion occurs doing major damage knocking everyone off their feet as the blast was over.

"Everyone okay?" Yuna asked as she got up from the blast but felt wobbly, either that blast was strong or that shadow was strong.

"Yeah, how about you Yuna?" Darnell asked around

"Ok on this end." Yuna answered while she getting up a bit slowly

"Rikku?" Yuna asked

"A-okay." Rikku says as she gets up

"What was that?" Yuna asked

"Well, I think that was ultima." Rikku says, the shadow nods at the guess that Rikku said.

"More blows like that and we'll done for." Darnell said observed feeling the power of ultima like that as Tidus uses a mega-potion to heal everyone..

"Have a plan?" Rikku asked him, she knew he had a plan now hopefully one that can end this fight.

"Spread out." was his answer "We're going to force it to watch one of us, we should be able to beat it if we attack from behind."

The Gullwings each spread out, Darnell faces the front of the shadow, Rikku is on the shadow's right side, Paine is on the left and Yuna is on the back side of the shadow.

'_Now pick your poison._' Darnell thought watching everyone in a waiting stance.

The shadow decides to strike Rikku trying to knock her back a bit, then Paine strikes with magic break doing damage and lowering the magic's power.

"Hope that'll do." Paine says after attacking.

The shadow fires a energy ball at him doing some damage knocking him to the ground, but he isn't out yet by a long shot.

Yuna suddenly does Trigger Happy getting in some critical shots but doing major damage to the shadow, Rikku strikes brings the shadow down to it's knees.

"Your turn." Rikku tells him.

Darnell wasn't attacking, instead his mind appeared to be somewhere else after Rikku strikes until one word was ringing in the young man's head.

"**Concentrate.**" the voice says.

Darnell didn't move.

"**Kid, concentrate.**" the voice repeats, Darnell shook his head snapping himself out of it and listened to the voice and surprisingly it was Jose's voice. He raised my sword pointing to the shadow, then strike several times and then the last strike ended with a bang.

Tidus does spiral cut defeating the shadow, then the shadow disappears with a black puff of smoke.

"Where it go?" Rikku asked

"I'm guessing back to whatever the hole is." Darnell answered, still wondering why would Jose tell him to concentrate in the middle of the battle but decided to ignore it for now.

"Whew, that was rough." Tidus commented as he checked on his wounds

"I know, but at least everyone's alive and accounted for." Darnell says

"Yep, by the way Darnell, what was that new move?" Paine asked, Rikku waited in curiosity.

"I have no idea honestly, but it felt cool to do." he answered honestly.

"That's cool." Tidus says.

"But why the delay?" Rikku wondered.

"No reason." Darnell says quickly lying that catches Rikku and Yuna but not everyone else as he walked ahead.

'_Something's wrong with him,when he stood there it was like he was in a trance. Then he snapped out of it and attacked the shadow, he's hiding something but what? He needs to include us in or we'll fail the mission and all will be for nothing if the shadows destroy Spira.' _Yuna thought.

_'That liar, there's something wrong with him but what? I can't help this feeling that I need to know from him, maybe I can get closer to him before Yuna does.' _Rikku thought devising a possible plan to talk to him alone.

The group heads back to the hotel that Rin was first encountered once defeating the shadow.

"That shadow is taken care of." Yuna ensured

"Oh thank you Lady Yuna, who's this?" Rin says but his focus is directed towards Darnell as he tried to fix things back up.

"That's Darnell, he's new." Yuna answered.

"_Hela du saad oui_." Rin says.

"Huh?" he says with a confused look, he has no idea what Rin just said to him.

"He means nice to meet you." Rikku says translating what he said.

"Wait, you understand him?" Darnell says in confusion turning to her.

"I do, he speaks Al Bhed." Rikku explained, Darnell is even more confused than before.

"Rikku, I suggest you teach him Al Bhed first." Rin says, Rikku nods at the advice.

"Right, let's go." Yuna says as they leave towards the ship hoping to hear more about the shadows as the Thunder Plains north section appeared to be the shadow's territory.

End of chapter 9

Here's my Al Bhed list if anyone is curious. (Al Bhed on left, English right.)

Y- A

P-B

L-C

T-D

A-E

V-F

K-G

R-H

E-I

Z-J

G-K

M-L

S-M

H-N

U-O

B-P

X-Q

N-R

C-S

D-T

I-U

J-V

F-W

Q-X

O-Y

W-Z


End file.
